Abstract: The field of quantum computing has observed extraordinary advances in the last decade, including the design and engineering of quantum computers with more than a hundred qubits. While these engineering advances have been celebrated widely, computational scientists continue to struggle to make meaningful use of existing quantum computers. This is primarily because quantum computers suffer from prohibitively high noise levels, which lead to erroneous program outputs and limit the practical usability of quantum computers.

 

Researchers and practitioners are actively devising theoretical and quantum hardware-based error mitigation techniques for quantum computers; while these efforts are useful, they do not help us realize the full potential of quantum computers. In this talk, I will discuss a unique opportunity space for quantum error mitigation from a system software perspective. In particular, I will demonstrate how to carefully design novel system software solutions that can further the reach of hardware-only solutions and improve the usability of quantum computers. However, the design of such solutions requires careful consideration of hardware characteristics – I will present specific case studies, including noise-aware quantum compilation and post-execution error mitigation, to highlight the importance of this approach. Finally, I will discuss how insights gained from these efforts open up new research avenues for hybrid quantum-classical computing.

 

Short Bio: Tirthak Patel is a Ph.D. Candidate at Northeastern University, Boston, advised by Professor Devesh Tiwari. Tirthak’s research is focused on the design of a novel system software stack for hybrid quantum-classical computing. Tirthak’s research contributions have appeared at rigorously peer-reviewed publication venues including ASPLOS, Supercomputing (SC), HPDC, HPCA, and USENIX FAST, and have been recognized with multiple awards nominations. He has received the ACM-IEEE CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship, the NSERC Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship, and the Northeastern University Outstanding Graduate Research Award for his research contributions toward making noisy quantum computing systems useful and helping HPC programmers solve computationally challenging problems.