To prepare her students for the future of computer science, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) researcher Tian Guo is launching a project that will put the power of quantum computing in their hands.
Guo, an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science, will use a $799,995 award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop computer science techniques and tools, as well as course modules with hands-on activities, that will prepare college students for careers in the emerging field of quantum cloud computing.
“Quantum computing can leverage vast computational power to solve incredibly complex problems in areas such as cryptography and scientific simulations of chemical reactions,” Guo said. “At the same time, quantum computing is a very challenging field and is only beginning to move into distributed quantum computing. This project will play a role in advancing the field of quantum cloud computing, educating future workers, and providing resources or services that can bring quantum computing to many more people.”
In this illustration of quantum cloud computing, a user submits quantum circuits as jobs to a quantum cloud. The quantum cloud contains specialized processors known as quantum processing units. After the user’s jobs run multiple times, the user receives a collection of results for analysis.
Quantum computing harnesses the laws of quantum mechanics and specialized hardware to process more information and solve problems faster than classical computers. Classical computing encodes data onto bits as zeros or ones, but quantum computing expands computing capacity by encoding data onto qubits, which can be in a superposition of zero and one. When users submit jobs to quantum computers, the jobs typically run multiple times to produce the most likely solution.
Quantum cloud computing allows users to access scarce quantum resources over the internet, much in the way that traditional cloud computing offers classical computing services to users. Some companies have begun making quantum resources available to users, but the field is still relatively new. As more users seek out quantum cloud services and more quantum jobs need to be executed using quantum resources, it will become important to develop algorithms to efficiently manage quantum computers.
As principal investigator (PI) on the three-year project, Guo will collaborate with co-PI Chen Qian, professor of computer science and engineering, at the University of California Santa Cruz. The project brings together Guo’s research in cloud computing and computer networking and Qian’s work on quantum networks, computers, and simulators.
The researchers will develop a framework for a quantum cloud that will include a controller to manage the cloud’s resources, schedule the order of jobs, and decide on the placement of jobs in the cloud. The researchers also will design algorithms that consider the unique characteristics of quantum servers when scheduling tasks. Finally, the researchers will develop a quantum cloud simulator for education and research purposes, and they will create videos, learning materials, and course materials on quantum cloud computing.
“The concept of the quantum cloud is relatively new, and this project allows us to investigate key problems in distributed quantum computing. If successful, this project will help to democratize the field by making it easier for anyone interested in quantum computing to test out their ideas,” Guo said. “I’m also excited to expand my understanding of this field and quantum computing system research at WPI while the field of quantum cloud computing is evolving. The educational activities enabled by this project can help prepare our students for the future of quantum computing and envision their role in quantum computing and even begin to innovate and lead in the field.”
