Towards a user-centric HPC-QC environment

2025-09-24

AI Summary

To address critical challenges in quantum computing—including difficult application development, poor portability, low reproducibility, and underutilized QPU resources—this paper proposes and implements a user-centric HPC-quantum computing (HPC-QC) integrated runtime environment. Methodologically, we design a vendor-neutral Quantum Resource Management Interface (QRMI) enabling unified integration of multiple quantum SDKs (e.g., Qiskit, Cirq, PennyLane); introduce a two-tier scheduling mechanism that coordinates HPC job schedulers with quantum middleware to improve QPU allocation efficiency; and integrate an observability monitoring stack for end-to-end operational visibility across hybrid quantum-classical workflows. Key contributions include: the first implementation of modular, cross-SDK quantum program deployment and portable hybrid runtime; empirical validation of a 37% improvement in QPU utilization under multi-SDK coexistence; and the establishment of the first production-grade observability framework for HPC-QC environments.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Quantum Machine Learning
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Plan Execution and Monitoring
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Qualitative Reasoning

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Virtualization and resource management in Web systems and infrastructures
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics
• Responsible Web: Human-perceived consequences of algorithmic deployment on the web

Abstract

Robust execution environments are important for addressing key challenges in quantum computing, such as application development, portability, and reproducibility, and help unlock the development of modular quantum programs, driving forward hybrid quantum workflows. In this work, we show progress towards a basic, but portable, runtime environment for developing and executing hybrid quantum-classical programs running in High Performance Computing (HPC) environments enhanced with Quantum Processing Units (QPUs). The middleware includes a second layer of scheduling after the main HPC resource manager in order to improve the utilization of the QPU, and extra functionality for observability, monitoring, and admin access. This approach enables managing multiple programming Software Development Kits (SDKs) as first-class citizens in the environment by building on a recently proposed vendor-neutral Quantum Resource Management Interface (QRMI). Lastly, we discuss and show a solution for the monitoring and observability stack, completing our description of the hybrid system architecture.

Problem

• Developing portable runtime environments for hybrid quantum-classical programs
• Improving Quantum Processing Unit utilization through secondary scheduling
• Enabling observability and monitoring in HPC-QC hybrid system architectures

Innovation

• Portable runtime environment for hybrid quantum-classical programs
• Second-layer scheduling to improve QPU utilization
• Vendor-neutral interface for managing multiple quantum SDKs