{"paper":{"title":"Control-Plane Openness in Near-Term Quantum Computing: A Survey of Vendor Stacks and Field Implications","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"Access to the control plane in commercial quantum computing has bifurcated, with large superconducting platforms closing it and mid-tier plus neutral-atom vendors opening it.","cross_cats":["cs.ET"],"primary_cat":"quant-ph","authors_text":"Rylan Malarchick","submitted_at":"2026-05-13T18:15:15Z","abstract_excerpt":"Public access to pulse-level and control-electronics interfaces in commercial quantum computing has bifurcated. The largest superconducting cloud platforms have closed access at this layer, with IBM removing pulse-level control from all production QPUs in February 2025; mid-tier superconducting vendors and the more open neutral-atom platforms have moved in the opposite direction. We survey thirteen commercial vendors across superconducting, trapped-ion, neutral-atom, and photonic modalities, grading each on six axes of openness at what we call the control plane: the layer between gate-level ci"},"claims":{"count":4,"items":[{"kind":"strongest_claim","text":"Public access to pulse-level and control-electronics interfaces in commercial quantum computing has bifurcated, with the largest superconducting cloud platforms closing access while mid-tier superconducting vendors and neutral-atom platforms have moved toward greater openness.","source":"verdict.strongest_claim","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C1","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"weakest_assumption","text":"The six-axis grading of each vendor accurately reflects current public policies and technical capabilities without requiring private vendor information or post-survey policy changes.","source":"verdict.weakest_assumption","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C2","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"one_line_summary","text":"A survey of thirteen quantum vendors grades control-plane openness on six axes and ships a machine-readable catalog documenting the bifurcation in access.","source":"verdict.one_line_summary","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C3","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"headline","text":"Access to the control plane in commercial quantum computing has bifurcated, with large superconducting platforms closing it and mid-tier plus neutral-atom vendors opening it.","source":"verdict.pith_extraction.headline","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C4","attestation":"unclaimed"}],"snapshot_sha256":"8aa61c1bb0a7510e9b89e1ca67b52d79791461fc2a7b5ba13d170c98cf53df76"},"source":{"id":"2605.15233","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":"d802b268-a092-47ac-a3c8-3d6745c2de2f","model_set":{"reader":"grok-4.3"},"created_at":"2026-05-19T17:07:07.934188Z","strongest_claim":"Public access to pulse-level and control-electronics interfaces in commercial quantum computing has bifurcated, with the largest superconducting cloud platforms closing access while mid-tier superconducting vendors and neutral-atom platforms have moved toward greater openness.","one_line_summary":"A survey of thirteen quantum vendors grades control-plane openness on six axes and ships a machine-readable catalog documenting the bifurcation in access.","pipeline_version":"pith-pipeline@v0.9.0","weakest_assumption":"The six-axis grading of each vendor accurately reflects current public policies and technical capabilities without requiring private vendor information or post-survey policy changes.","pith_extraction_headline":"Access to the control plane in commercial quantum computing has bifurcated, with large superconducting platforms closing it and mid-tier plus neutral-atom vendors opening it."},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2605.15233/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[{"name":"claim_evidence","ran_at":"2026-05-19T17:41:56.181158Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"doi_title_agreement","ran_at":"2026-05-19T17:31:18.478692Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"doi_compliance","ran_at":"2026-05-19T17:16:20.564331Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"ai_meta_artifact","ran_at":"2026-05-19T13:33:22.828161Z","status":"skipped","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0}],"snapshot_sha256":"93ab6005b064af2a04f8561affddcff2bde940777c629389e60a8c9a11ca69d0"},"references":{"count":46,"sample":[{"doi":"","year":2025,"title":"Migrate from Qiskit Pulse to fractional gates,","work_id":"e6a34bca-f95c-488d-b430-685c9c3017b7","ref_index":1,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2024,"title":"Deprecate pulse module and related functionality for removal in 2.0,","work_id":"61d5b731-88b5-43c4-be41-5818f5eea839","ref_index":2,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2024,"title":"Remove pulse and its dependencies in Qiskit 2.0,","work_id":"edae0efd-c4d9-4a07-924d-c88ba4a11f94","ref_index":3,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2026,"title":"IQM Pulla 12.0.1 documentation,","work_id":"d62eda41-f3a3-46c5-8535-38558563c9fe","ref_index":4,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2026,"title":"What is Quil?","work_id":"9966cdbf-2674-4871-978d-48e01d049ed8","ref_index":5,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false}],"resolved_work":46,"snapshot_sha256":"703fc5ee6df7832c02b9478173e6aed657c4019b40e2d7a428aeccf6af56886a","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":1,"snapshot_sha256":"c7519b7d26fce1492f04dca94d74d5999126a2f2640c754e117cbe13f7175868"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}