Partial Compilation of Variational Algorithms for Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum Machines
Pranav Gokhale, Yongshan Ding, Thomas Propson, Christopher Winkler, Nelson Leung, Yunong Shi, David I. Schuster, Henry Hoffmann, Frederic T. Chong · 2019
Quantum computing is on the cusp of reality with Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) machines currently under development and testing. Some of the most promising algorithms for these machines are variational algorithms that employ classical optimization coupled with quantum hardware to evaluate the quality of each candidate solution. Recent work used GRadient Descent Pulse Engineering (GRAPE) to translate quantum programs into highly optimized machine control pulses, resulting in a significant reduction in the execution time of programs. This is critical, as quantum machines can barely support the execution of short programs before failing.