Is quantum computing green? An estimate for an energy-efficiency quantum advantage

Abstract

The quantum advantage threshold determines when a quantum processing unit (QPU) is more efficient with respect to classical computing hardware in terms of algorithmic complexity. The "green" quantum advantage threshold $-$ based on a comparison of energetic efficiency between the two $-$ is going to play a fundamental role in the comparison between quantum and classical hardware. Indeed, its characterization would enable better decisions on energy-saving strategies, e.g. for distributing the workload in hybrid quantum-classical algorithms. Here, we show that the green quantum advantage threshold crucially depends on (i) the quality of the experimental quantum gates and (ii) the entanglement generated in the QPU. Indeed, for NISQ hardware and algorithms requiring a moderate amount of entanglement, a classical tensor network emulation can be more energy-efficient at equal final state fidelity than quantum computation. We compute the green quantum advantage threshold for a few paradigmatic examples in terms of algorithms and hardware platforms, and identify algorithms with a power-law decay of singular values of bipartitions $-$ with power-law exponent $\alpha \lesssim 1$ $-$ as the green quantum advantage threshold in the near future.

arXiv comment12 pages, 7 figures, 2 table; minor revisions in comparison to v1, e.g., one additional table

References in corpus (30)

• Quantum Computing in the NISQ era and beyond
• Supplementary information for "Quantum supremacy using a programmable superconducting processor"
• The density-matrix renormalization group in the age of matrix product states
• Area laws for the entanglement entropy - a review
• Efficient classical simulation of slightly entangled quantum computations
• Quantum computational advantage using photons
• A Practical Introduction to Tensor Networks: Matrix Product States and Projected Entangled Pair States
• Logic gates at the surface code threshold: Superconducting qubits poised for fault-tolerant quantum computing
• Quantum trajectories and open many-body quantum systems
• Parallel implementation of high-fidelity multi-qubit gates with neutral atoms
• Benchmarking an 11-qubit quantum computer
• Quantum computing with neutral atoms
• A compact ion-trap quantum computing demonstrator
• Quantum technologies need a Quantum Energy Initiative
• What limits the simulation of quantum computers?
• A concise review of Rydberg atom based quantum computation and quantum simulation
• 0.5 Petabyte Simulation of a 45-Qubit Quantum Circuit
• A flexible high-performance simulator for verifying and benchmarking quantum circuits implemented on real hardware
• Solving the sampling problem of the Sycamore quantum circuits
• Establishing the Quantum Supremacy Frontier with a 281 Pflop/s Simulation
• Closing the "Quantum Supremacy" Gap: Achieving Real-Time Simulation of a Random Quantum Circuit Using a New Sunway Supercomputer
• The Boundary for Quantum Advantage in Gaussian Boson Sampling
• A density-matrix renormalization group algorithm for simulating quantum circuits with a finite fidelity
• Quantum Fourier Transform Has Small Entanglement
• One-dimensional many-body entangled open quantum systems with tensor network methods
• Limitations in quantum computing from resource constraints
• Fast multi-qubit gates through simultaneous two-qubit gates
• Energy-Efficient Quantum Computing
• Exascale Deep Learning for Scientific Inverse Problems
• Open source Matrix Product States: Exact diagonalization and other entanglement-accurate methods revisited in quantum systems

Cited by in corpus (18)

• The Variational Quantum Eigensolver: a review of methods and best practices
• Tensor networks for quantum machine learning
• Entanglement entropy production in Quantum Neural Networks
• Energy-Consumption Advantage of Quantum Computation
• How quantum computing can enhance biomarker discovery
• Strong Simulation of Linear Optical Processes
• A Holistic Approach to Quantum Ethics Education
• Ab-initio tree-tensor-network digital twin for quantum computer benchmarking in 2D
• Digital quantum simulation of lattice fermion theories with local encoding
• Quantum circuit compilation with quantum computers
• Observation of partial and infinite-temperature thermalization induced by repeated measurements on a quantum hardware
• Classical Half-Adder using Trapped-ion Quantum Bits: Towards Energy-efficient Computation
• The Role of Quantum Computing in Advancing Scientific High-Performance Computing: A perspective from the ADAC Institute
• Autonomous Quantum Processing Unit: An Autonomous Thermal Computing Machine & its Physical Limitations
• Harnessing Quantum Computing for Energy Materials: Opportunities and Challenges
• Sample Complexity of Black Box Work Extraction
• Full Quantum Work Statistics for Non-Homogeneous Many-Body Systems
• Hyperspectral image segmentation with a machine learning model trained using quantum annealer