EQUIP

Challenge: Perturbation-free quantum computations

A current challenge is to perform quantum calculations with as few errors as possible. The calculations should be protected from noise and decoherence with the help of quantum error correction. To achieve reliable calculations, the integration of quantum error correction into practical quantum computers is necessary. 

The EQUIP project aims to enable such integration by providing radically new solutions for error-tolerant quantum computation. These solutions will cover both medium and large quantum systems, bridging the critical gap between algorithmic solutions and hardware designs with constrained latency, performance and scalability.

To achieve these goals, the project brings together interdisciplinary expertise ranging from the computer science foundations of quantum error correction and fault-tolerant computation to algorithmic aspects, computer architectures and hardware designs.

Developments of the EQUIP project

Important developments of the EQUIP project are, first, optimised solutions with low qubit overhead suitable for, but not limited to, medium-size quantum systems:

• First, this includes application- and software-based error-mitigation methods as well as flag error-correction protocols. Here, the Institute of Software Technology is making a significant contribution to researching methods that can be used in the near future, especially in applications from DLR's range of topics.
• Secondly, completely new approaches for the accurate and hardware-friendly decoding of low-density quantum parity check codes are being developed for large-scale systems and pioneering approaches based on quantum polar codes are being researched.
• Third, the effectiveness of the proposed solutions will be demonstrated by their implementation in real quantum devices or medium-scale quantum simulators and by hardware prototyping of the most promising decoding solutions for large-scale devices.

The aim of the planned research is to prepare European industry for the upcoming challenges of innovative quantum technology.