Research and Development of Remote Procedure Call for Quantum HPC Hybrid Platform

Software Development for the effective and efficient use of quantum HPC Hybrid

Overview

We are developing system software to link quantum computers and supercomputers. We are implementing a remote call system to enable a program running on a supercomputer to offload some tasks to a quantum computer at runtime. We will also implement a quantum computing request scheduler for safe and efficient use of the quantum computer from the supercomputer. The communication libraries between the quantum computing request scheduler, supercomputer, and quantum computer will also be developed.

Detail

A quantum computer is a computer which is based on quantum physics. Since quantum computers' working principle is different from that of conventional computers, it is expected that quantum computers could potentially solve some problems that are different from current conventional computers. Nevertheless, conventional computers, especially supercomputers, should be powerful tools to solve problems even in the future. Therefore, combining supercomputers and quantum computers effectively is expected to increase computational capabilities.

In this project, we will develop system software to connect quantum computers and supercomputers. We especially focus on a function called remote procedure call (RPC), which allows one computer to offload some tasks to another computer via a communication network. We are developing software that makes RPC using a common API from a supercomputer to quantum computers and quantum computing simulators.
Both quantum computers and supercomputers are valuable shared computational resources since many users would like to execute various applications. To run a quantum HPC hybrid application effectively, we have to minimize the idling time in both computers. For example, it is not preferable to make one computer wait for another. Therefore, we have proposed a two-level programming model:
(1) workflow programming to submit tasks (jobs) to different computers in a certain order by considering the dependency between the jobs, and
(2)task-based programming involving RPC offloadings from a supercomputer to a quantum computer.
In this project, we are developing the RPC offloading library for the (2) and a quantum computing request scheduler to control the priorities of the quantum computing requests from a supercomputer and those from quantum computer users.

The quantum computing request scheduler works in front of the quantum computing backend server, and all the requests to quantum computers in our platform must go through the quantum computing request scheduler. The quantum computing request scheduler prioritizes the requests from supercomputers rather than those issued from simple quantum computer users to avoid making supercomputers idle while the request is in the waiting queue. This high priority for the quantum computing requests from a supercomputer will be allowed for the quantum HPC Hybrid job where quantum and HPC tasks are tightly coupled.

The quantum computing request scheduler will also support user authorization. The communication libraries and the interfaces between the quantum computing request scheduler, HPC application, and quantum computer backend server will also be developed in this project.

Project Members

RIKEN Center for Computational Science

Project Leader

Miwako Tsuji: Quantum-HPC Hybrid Platform Division Quantum-HPC Hybrid Software Environment Unit
Maxence Vandromme: Quantum-HPC Hybrid Platform Division Quantum-HPC Hybrid Software Environment Unit
Yuetsu Kodama: Quantum-HPC Hybrid Platform Division
Masaaki Kondo: Next Generation High Performance Architecture Research Team
Mitsuhisa Sato: Quantum-HPC Hybrid Platform Division

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