The Governors of the University of Calgary

Purpose

The Project investigates techniques for working with heterogeneity that is likely to be present in early fault-tolerant quantum computers. In this context, heterogeneity refers to interactions between different types of computational resources. The Project focuses on protocols, architectures, and compilation techniques that operate between the error-correction and application layers of the fault-tolerant quantum computing stack. The research will benchmark existing approaches, develop new protocols for implementing key quantum computational primitives, and establish fundamental performance bounds for heterogeneous fault-tolerant architectures. These efforts will address challenges arising from limited connectivity, interactions between logical and physical qubits, classical coprocessing, and architectures that assign specialized roles to different parts of a device. By combining theoretical analysis with practical benchmarking, the project aims to provide quantitative guidance valuable to both quantum hardware providers and quantum algorithm developers. In parallel, the Project will train highly qualified personnel with expertise relevant to Canada’s quantum computing ecosystem.