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The JHPC-quantum project is aiming to develop system software to integrate quantum computers and supercomputers (HPC), targeting a cutting-edge quantum computer, which is expected to make significant progress toward practical use in the next few years, and to build an HPC-supercomputer hybrid computing platform that will enable computation in areas of uncharted computational capability. Our platform will be operated and served to perform computation in areas that have been difficult to achieve with conventional computers. Our goal is to operate the platform and develop applications using both quantum computers and HPCs to demonstrate the effectiveness of the platform. Furthermore, we will develop technologies to deploy the quantum/HPC hybrid application software executed on this platform as a service provided by networks in the post-5G era.

Quantum computers are being actively studied by several research institutes and companies in Japan and all over the world since the quantum device operates on a completely different principle from conventional computers and can be expected to dramatically increase the speed of information processing for problems in particular domains. Quantum computers must operate under the appropriate control of conventional digital computers, or classical computers, and as a computer system, they are quantum/classical hybrid systems.

Considering the use of quantum computers that will be pioneered in the future, many of the application areas expected of quantum computers are overlapping those that have been computed so far using the computing power of supercomputers. From the supercomputer side, quantum computers are considered as a device that greatly accelerates applications through seamless integration.

At present, the scale is limited to only a few dozen qubits, and the counter-part classical computers is often relatively small servers; however, as the scale increases beyond a hundred qubits, a large amount of computation will be required to optimize quantum circuits and to process error mitigation in the current NISQ (Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum) computer. It is expected that these processes will be accelerated by utilizing the computational power of supercomputers in Quantum-HPC hybrid computing platform.

Our JHPC-quantum project is conducting the research, development of Quantum-HPC hybrid computing system software, and building a quantum-supercomputer hybrid computing platform using the software with Information technology center of University of Tokyo, a leading university supercomputer center, and　Center for Quantum Information and Quantum Biology of Osaka University, a leading institute for the development of quantum software, as partners. In addition, the project will collaborate with companies interested in quantum HPC technology, with SOFTBANK at the core, to pursue services in the post-5G era based-on new quantum HPC technology.