A Chip-scale Space-time Multiplexed Gaussian Boson Sampling Processor Beyond 10,000 Photons

Abstract

Gaussian boson sampling (GBS) has emerged as a leading photonic paradigmfor demonstrating quantum computational advantage. Nevertheless, state-ofthe-art GBS setups face practical barriers including stringent optical alignment, phase instability, and limited programmability, which impede scalable engineering deployment. The chip-scale space-time multiplexed architecturepromises to resolve these constraints, yet it strongly demands wafer-scale chipcapabilities to simultaneously satisfy stringent requirements on low loss, highprecision and high-speed modulation. Here we report the first chip-scale spacetime multiplexed GBS system, monolithically integrating high-speed electrooptic modulators, on-chip delay lines, and a time-space multiplexed interferometric network on a thin-film lithium niobate chip, operating at a 4-GHz clockrate with detection events of up to 11,059 photons within 1 millisecond. Beyond benchmarking quantum advantage, we further reconfigure the photonichardware into a GBS-powered world model for modelling physical dynamics,which achieves lower prediction error with fewer trainable readout parameters compared with a classical echo state network (ESN) baseline. Our resultsvalidate the feasibility of our endeavor towards scalable photonic quantumhardware, and pave the way for the versatile programmable applications offuture GBS quantum systems.