Qanela: A framework proposal for designing portable quantum assembly languages across different quantum computing platforms
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
The diversity of quantum hardware platforms creates significant algorithm portability challenges, with each platform employing distinct instruction sets, gate implementations, and physical constraints that hinder software reusability. This paper presents a framework for designing portable quantum assembly languages enabling seamless cross-platform execution. Through systematic profiling of Shor’s, Grover’s, and QAOA algorithms on IBM Qiskit, Microsoft Q#, and Google Cirq — 3,216 executions of identical, reference-validated logical circuits — we identify key portability challenges and derive empirically grounded design criteria from execution-pattern analysis. With matched workloads, cross-platform circuit-depth divergence is 1.3–1.6× where no gate decomposition is required and rises to 94.8× under multi-controlled decomposition pressure, of which 3.36× is genuine same-level synthesis divergence and the remainder an abstraction-level measurement gap; optimization semantics, topology expressibility, and quantum–classical execution contracts diverge analogously. The framework balances hardware abstraction with performance optimization through declared abstraction levels, topology-aware compilation, optimization profiles with defined semantics, and a universal gate set with platform-specific decomposition. Prototype validation demonstrates 100% automated compilation of unmodified single-source programs across 30 platform configurations, with all 90 executions passing calibrated distributional acceptance gates and exact statevector fidelity of 1.000000 against the language’s reference semantics, providing feasibility evidence for vendor-independent quantum software development.
Article Details
Section
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Los autores conservan los derechos de autor y ceden a la revista el derecho de la primera publicación y pueda editarlo, reproducirlo, distribuirlo, exhibirlo y comunicarlo en el país y en el extranjero mediante medios impresos y electrónicos. Asimismo, asumen el compromiso sobre cualquier litigio o reclamación relacionada con derechos de propiedad intelectual, exonerando de responsabilidad a la Editorial Tecnológica de Costa Rica. Además, se establece que los autores pueden realizar otros acuerdos contractuales independientes y adicionales para la distribución no exclusiva de la versión del artículo publicado en esta revista (p. ej., incluirlo en un repositorio institucional o publicarlo en un libro) siempre que indiquen claramente que el trabajo se publicó por primera vez en esta revista.
How to Cite
References
[1] M. Ying, Foundations of Quantum Programming, 2nd ed. Morgan Kaufmann, 2024.
[2] J. Preskill, “Quantum computing in the NISQ era and beyond,” Quantum, vol. 2, p. 79, 2018.
[3] A. Aspuru-Guzik, A. D. Dutoi, P. J. Love, and M. Head-Gordon, “Simulated quantum computation of molecular energies,” Science, vol. 309, no. 5741, pp. 1704–1707, 2005.
[4] M. Reiher et al., “Elucidating reaction mechanisms on quantum computers,” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., vol. 114, no. 29, pp. 7555–7560, 2017.
[5] A. Perdomo-Ortiz, N. Dickson, M. Drew-Brook, G. Rose, and A. Aspuru-Guzik, “Finding low-energy conformations of lattice protein models by quantum annealing,” Sci. Rep., vol. 2, p. 571, 2012.
[6] Y. Cao et al., “Quantum chemistry in the age of quantum computing,” Chem. Rev., vol. 119, no. 19, pp. 10856–10915, 2019.
[7] M. Kjaergaard et al., “Superconducting qubits: Current state of play,” Annu. Rev. Condens. Matter Phys., vol. 11, pp. 369–395, 2020.
[8] T. Rudolph, “Why I am optimistic about the silicon-photonic route to quantum computing,” APL Photonics, vol. 2, no. 3, p. 030901, 2017.
[9] M. Schönberger, M. Franz, S. Scherzinger, and W. Mauerer, “Peel | pile? Cross-framework portability of quantum software,” arXiv preprint arXiv:2203.06289, 2022.
[10] K. M. Barnes et al., “Optimising the quantum/classical interface for efficiency and portability with a multi-level hardware abstraction layer for quantum computers,” EPJ Quantum Technol., vol. 10, p. 36, 2023.
[11] J. I. Cirac and P. Zoller, “Goals and opportunities in quantum simulation,” Nat. Phys., vol. 8, pp. 264–266, 2012.
[12] S. Lopez Alarcón, E. Wong, T. S. Humble, and E. Dumitrescu, “Quantum programming paradigms and description languages,” Computing in Science & Engineering, vol. 25, no. 6, pp. 33–38, 2023.
[13] R. Lipton and K. Regan, Introduction to Quantum Algorithms via Linear Algebra, 2nd ed. MIT Press, 2021.
[14] D. Castelvecchi, “Quantum computers ready to leap out of the lab in 2017,” Nature, vol. 541, no. 7635, pp. 9–10, 2017.
[15] J. Zhao, “Quantum software engineering: Landscapes and horizons,” arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.07047, 2021.
[16] S. Núñez-Corrales, M. Frenkel, and B. Abreu, “quAPL: Modeling quantum computation in an array programming language,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Quantum Computing and Engineering (QCE), 2023, pp. 1001–1012.
[17] N. Khammassi et al., “OpenQL: A portable quantum programming framework for quantum accelerators,” ACM Trans. Quantum Comput., vol. 18, no. 1, Art. 13, 2021.
[18] A. J. Adams, S. Khan, J. S. Young, and T. M. Conte, “Qwerty: A basis-oriented quantum programming language,” arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.12603, 2024.
[19] F. Voichick, L. Li, R. Rand, and M. Hicks, “Qunity: A unified language for quantum and classical computing,” Proc. ACM Program. Lang., vol. 7, POPL, Art. 32, 2023.
[20] A. W. Cross, L. S. Bishop, J. A. Smolin, and J. M. Gambetta, “Open quantum assembly language,” arXiv preprint arXiv:1707.03429, 2017.
[21] A. Cross et al., “OpenQASM 3: A broader and deeper quantum assembly language,” ACM Trans. Quantum Comput., vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 1–50, 2022.
[22] C. Fu, J. E. G. Smith, and Y. Tomita, “cQASM v1.0: Towards a common quantum assembly language,” arXiv preprint arXiv:1805.09607, 2020.
[23] A. J. Landahl et al., “Jaqal: The quantum assembly language for QSCOUT,” Sandia National Laboratories Technical Report, 2020.
[24] D. S. Lobser et al., “Transpiling quantum assembly language circuits to a qudit form,” arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.18963, 2020.
[25] A. Karamlou et al., “A MLIR dialect for quantum assembly languages,” arXiv preprint arXiv:2101.11365, 2020.
[26] A. Suau, G. Staffelbach, and A. Todri-Sanial, “qprof: A gprof-inspired quantum profiler,” ACM Trans. Quantum Comput., vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 1–28, 2022.
[27] R. Jain, The Art of Computer Systems Performance Analysis: Techniques for Experimental Design, Measurement, Simulation, and Modeling. John Wiley & Sons, 1991.
[28] M. S. Nikulin, “Hellinger distance,” in Encyclopedia of Mathematics, M. Hazewinkel, Ed. Springer, 2001.