Towards a Dutch hybrid quantum/HPC infrastructure

Quantum Inspire has taken important steps to enable quantum applications by developing a setting that allows the execution of hybrid algorithms. Currently, the setting uses a classical server (HPC node) co-located with the quantum computer for the high frequency coupling needed by hybrid algorithms. A fast task manager (dispatcher) has been developed to orchestrate the interaction between the server and the quantum computer. Although successful, the setting imposes a specific hybrid job-structure. This is most likely always going to be the case and we are currently discussing how to make sure this does not hamper the uptake of the setting. Furthermore, first steps have been taken towards the integration with the Dutch National High-Performance Computing (HPC) Center, hosted by SURF. As a first approach we have setup a setting consisting of two SLURM clusters, one in the HPC (C1) and the second (C2) co-located with Quantum Inspire API. Jobs are submitted from C1 to C2. Quantum Inspire can then schedule with C2 the jobs to the quantum computer. With this setting, we enable control from both SURF and Quantum Inspire on the jobs being executed. By using C1 for the jobs submission we remove the accounting burden from Quantum Inspire. By having C2 co-located with Quantum Inspire API, we make the setting more resilient towards network failures. This setting can be extended for other HPC centers to submit jobs to Quantum Inspire backends.