A Uniform Quantum Computing Model based on Virtual Quantum Processors

Abstract

What else than Hybrid Quantum Computing will dominate data centers, just within a decade? But until now, it is unclear how precisely such high-performance computers will be constructed, even the fundamental functionality is in question. Thus, it is very hard to prepare today, from a programmer perspective, in-depth for the anticipated near-term programming paradigm shift due to quantum computers. Furthermore, the industry is reluctant to invest heavily into quantum software development right now, since under this uncertainty regarding the future development of hardware and Cloud services, no one would like to see all these efforts to be ruined by a novel technology, an unforeseen new machine, which would eradicate the software in place, which the industry had developed so costly. This calls for a more generic view on Hybrid Quantum Computing, on one hand hardware agnostic, but still anticipating the fundamental laws of nature which rule any future quantum computing system, regardless of its engineered excellence. This generalization can be done with the introduction of a Virtual Quantum Processor, a piece of imaginary hardware, which is described detailed enough, to emulate a generic hybrid quantum machine based on a set of instructions within a Turing machine. If this could be accomplished, we would retrieve a Uniform Computing Model for Hybrid Quantum Software, which can be applied later to any physical representation of quantum computing hardware, but would run already today on our current machines.