Oak Ridge labs gets hybrid quantum-HPC system to test qubit error correction

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) now boasts a system for research into quantum error correction, combining IBM quantum processors with a high-performance compute (HPC) system based on AMD silicon.

The Quantum Science Center (QSC) at ORNL, funded by the US Department of Energy (DoE), unveiled what it calls a co-design platform for quantum error correction, marrying up quantum and HPC technology.

While useful, fault-tolerant quantum systems always seem to be at least a decade away, there have been notable advances over the past several years in the field of quantum error correction, according to ORNL. These include early demonstrations of protecting quantum information from environmental noise, which can cause loss of the fragile quantum states needed for computations.

"Solving the challenges of quantum error correction is essential to making quantum computing a practical tool for scientific discovery, which is a priority for Oak Ridge National Laboratory," said QSC director Travis Humble.

IBM Fellow and director of IBM Research Jay Gambetta said that it was no longer a question of whether error correction works, but how to accelerate and optimize error correction to build systems that scientists can use to tackle challenging problems.

"This new co-design platform for quantum error correction allows us to evaluate different approaches and determine the architectures, software and workflows that will scale," he stated.

ORNL's new tool combines an IBM Quantum System Two, equipped with the latest 120-qubit Nighthawk r2 quantum processors, and Umbra, a classical HPC system powered by AMD 5th Gen Epyc CPUs and Instinct MI355X GPU accelerators.

According to AMD, the CPUs provide the orchestration and general-purpose performance needed to coordinate everything, while the GPUs accelerate simulation, optimization and the parallel scientific computations surrounding quantum workloads.

Also part of the system are AMD Versal SoCs to provide the low-latency control, readout and decoding capabilities for the quantum circuitry.

ORNL says that this brings together the computing infrastructure needed for quantum error correction in a single environment, and opens it up to more researchers than ever before. They will use it to develop and validate quantum algorithms, workflows, and applications in an environment built for quantum-centric supercomputing, an emerging paradigm where quantum processors (QPUs), CPUs, and GPUs work together as one system.

IBM says that one promising approach the co-design platform cloud explore is hierarchical error correction. It describes this as using an inner code to protect qubits within a module, while an outer code wraps around the inner code’s logical qubits and adds a second layer of protection.

This approach could reach a trillion logical operations at a physical error rate of one in a thousand, IBM research suggested. These hierarchical codes rely on having powerful classical compute, and the co-design platform will give researchers a place to test and develop those ideas with GPUs in a low-latency environment, the firm states.

The co-design platform is likely to play a key part in the DoE’s Quantum Genesis Mission objectives. These include the recently announced Q Competition, an initiative to deliver a system with 100 logical qubits capable of performing hundreds of millions of fault-tolerant operations. It follows an executive order from President Trump to develop a full-blown quantum system by 2028.®