The Classical Advances Needed to Make Quantum Computers Tick

Quantum computers promise to one day solve problems beyond the most powerful supercomputers imaginable. But it’s often underappreciated how much classical computing it takes just to operate these machines. As qubit counts rise, innovations in this supporting infrastructure will be essential if they’re to live up to their promise. To prepare for the scale of quantum computers the industry is working toward, many companies are also gearing up the classical hardware, and software, required to support them. In April, Nvidia announced new AI-based software to accelerate the classical tasks that enable quantum computers. Sydney-based quantum software company Q-CTRL has developed an automatic calibration algorithm for quantum computers, and is now leveraging Nvidia’s agent-based system. Other companies, including IBM Quantum , Cambridge, England–based Riverlane , which develops quantum-error correction, and Google Quantum AI , are developing similar tools. The Role of Classical in Quantum Digital computer chips are marvels of engineering,…