Introducing the Open Quantum Benchmark Committee with Metriq

The quantum computing landscape is rapidly evolving, with breakthroughs and advancements occurring regularly. However, amidst this progress, one challenge persists: how can researchers, developers, and enthusiasts effectively benchmark and compare different quantum computing platforms and technologies? To address this challenge head-on, Unitary Fund is excited to announce the establishment of the Open Quantum Benchmark Committee. This committee will play a crucial role in furthering the development and adoption of quantum benchmarks to provide the community with a comprehensive and reliable framework for evaluating quantum computing systems.

The motivation behind the Open Quantum Benchmark Committee stems from the need to foster collaboration and standardization within the quantum computing community. By bringing together experts from various domains, including applications, compilers, error correction, hardware, and simulators, we aim to increase the size and improve the quality of the taxonomy captured by Metriq (https://metriq.info/), our community-driven quantum benchmarks platform, and empower researchers and developers with the tools they need to navigate the complex landscape of quantum computing benchmarks.

Metriq (https://metriq.info/) is a free and open-source platform to facilitate quantum computing benchmarking. It gives researchers and developers a centralized hub to submit results, propose new benchmarking tasks, and access openly accessible data. By making benchmarking data explorable and live-updated, Metriq accelerates research and development in quantum technology. As a community member, you can go to https://metriq.info/ and contribute metrics from your own papers to increase the robustness of benchmarking data.

Committee members will serve for one year, volunteering their time and expertise to attend quarterly meetings and support open-source and open-access quantum benchmarks. This is an open application process available to anyone in the public. To start, the committee will evaluate and decide on two metrics per topic found on the State of the Art Quantum Benchmarks page.

We also acknowledge the invaluable contributions from other initiatives in this space, such as IEEE Quantum Benchmarks, QED-C STAC on Standards, BACQ, and events like the TQCI Seminar on Benchmarks for Quantum Computing, which collectively enrich the goals of standardized benchmarking across the field. The establishment of the Open Quantum Benchmark Committee represents a significant step towards advancing the field of quantum computing through collaboration and standardization. By leveraging the community’s collective expertise and harnessing the power of platforms like Metriq, we can accelerate progress and unlock the full potential of quantum technology.

Meet the Committee

AJ Rasmusson AJ Rasmusson is a graduate student at Indiana University doing trapped-ion research under Phil Richerme. This Summer, he’ll start a postdoc at the NIST Ion Storage Group, doing more ion trap experiments. In high school, his grandpa gifted him an audio lecture on quantum physics, and he’s been hooked ever since. He enjoys—and has greatly benefited from—open science endeavors, and he believe this philosophy is important for a vibrant scientific community. Outside of work, he enjoys wrangling his three kids, eating delicious food, 3D printing, and wandering the great outdoors.

Amit Gangapuram Amit received his Ph.D. in Physics from Leibniz University Hannover in 2021, focusing on developing computational methods for extracting properties associated with quantum many-body states, mainly topologically ordered states. After being a postdoctoral fellow at Leibniz University, he moved to the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), Switzerland, where he focused on developing a containerized toolchain that allows for rapid deployment and benchmarking of various quantum simulators on HPC systems. His research interests include integrating multiple machine-learning techniques to study the properties of quantum many-body systems and developing and investigating system and application benchmarks for various quantum software and hardware architectures. He is currently a researcher at Leibniz Supercomputing Centre, exploring the integration of HPC and quantum computing.

Andrea Giachero Andrea Giachero is an Associate Professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca, a member of the Bicocca Quantum Technologies Centre, and the Principal Investigator (PI) of several activities in the field of quantum technologies. In 2021, the European Union honored him as a talented researcher with a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (MSCA-IF) Global Fellow (GF). Since October 2021, he has held an MSCA fellowship. From January 2022 to September 2023, he was a visiting faculty member at the University of Colorado Boulder (USA) and an international research associate at the National Institute of Standards and Technology Boulder (USA) in the Quantum Sensor Division. Although his visiting period ended in September 2023, he continued collaborating with both institutions as an external collaborator.

Andrea Giachero has more than 20 years of experience developing hardware and software for data acquisition systems in fundamental physics. Previously, his work focused on particle physics and rare events (such as neutrinos, double beta decay, and dark matter), and he is currently working in the realm of hardware and software quantum information science. He is presently coordinating projects and working packages to develop broadband quantum limited readout chains for qubit multiplexing exploiting open-source software and hardware. With an unwavering dedication to transparency and collaboration, Andrea epitomizes the principles of open science, cultivating an inclusive atmosphere conducive to idea exchange and advancing cutting-edge technologies.

Ed Younis (Added from Oct 16, 2024) Ed is a computer systems engineer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with extensive experience developing and implementing advanced algorithms for quantum compilation, such as QFAST and QFactor. He is currently the principal engineer on the BQSKit project and has research interests in quantum synthesis, compilation, and software systems.

Eduardo Maschio Eduardo Maschio builds quantum software tools and libraries for researchers and developers at Pasqal. He has also been involved in open source initiatives such as Quantum Open Source Foundation as a mentor and UnitaryFund as a grantee, developing a quantum programming language and algorithms for quantum computers and networks.

Frederic Barbaresco Frédéric Barbaresco is the leader of the “quantum algorithms and computers” segment for the THALES Corporate technical department within the KTD PCC (Key Technology Domain “Processing, Control & Cognition”). He coordinates the THALES R&T activity on Quantum Algorithms between the THALES Business Lines and the TRTs (Thales Research & Technology). He is also responsible for developing partnerships with Deeptech Start-ups and academic laboratories on this theme. In this context, he is in charge of the maturation of more than 20 THALES use cases linked to structuring market segments. For THALES, he is piloting the BACQ (Application-oriented Benchmarks for Quantum Computing) project of the LNE national MetriQs program with partners CEA, Eviden, CNRS, and TERATEC. In May 2023, he organized a TERATEC TQCI seminar at THALES TRT with LNE, which was the 1st international workshop on “Benchmarking of quantum computers”, bringing together more than 200 experts from Europe (Tu Delft, TNO, Fraunhofer, etc… ), the USA (IBM, MetriQ, etc.), Japan and Singapore. He will organize the 2nd TQCI seminar on this topic that will take place in Reims in June 2024. He organized with QuantX in 2023 the largest International Corporate Quantum Hackathon, involving more than 80 people in 5 countries (FR, GE, UK, CAN, SG) on 10 THALES use cases with nine quantum computer suppliers or emulators. He coordinated the GIFAS subgroup on “Quantum computing” with a report delivered in March 2024. He is a member of the IEEE “Quantum Computing Benchmarking” standardization working group. He represented THALES on the France pavilion at the 1st Quantum World Congress in Washington. He received the 2014 Aymée Poirson Prize from the French Academy of Sciences for applying science to industry. Ampère Medal, Emeritus Member of the SEE, and President of the SEE ISIC “Information and Communication Systems Engineering” club. He graduated from Centrale-Supelec in 1991.

Justin Gage Lietz Justin Gage Lietz, PhD, is a senior quantum software architect at NVIDIA, where he works on CUDA Quantum, an open-source programming model for building quantum-classical applications. Before NVIDIA, he worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, researching high-performance computing and quantum computing algorithms for physics applications.

Luke Govia Luke Govia is a research scientist at IBM Quantum, where he works on benchmarking quantum hardware with a focus on quantum error correction and mitigation. Previously, he was a scientist at Raytheon BBN and held postdoctoral researcher appointments at the University of Chicago and McGill University. He obtained his PhD from Saarland University and an MSc and BSc from the University of Waterloo. Aside from characterization and benchmarking, his research expertise lies in superconducting qubit device theory, open quantum systems, and neuromorphic quantum computing.

Olivia Di Matteo Olivia Di Matteo is an Assistant Professor in UBC’s Electrical and Computer Engineering department and the Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Quantum Software and Algorithms. She obtained her PhD at the University of Waterloo and Institute for Quantum Computing in 2019 in Physics (Quantum Information). Following her PhD she worked as a Quantum Information Science Associate at TRIUMF and as a Quantum Computing Educator and Researcher at the Toronto-based quantum startup Xanadu. At UBC, she leads the Quantum Software and Algorithms Research Lab, which focuses on designing and implementing open-source software for quantum compiler tools and physics applications.

Paul Nation Paul Nation received his Ph.D in Physics from Dartmouth College in 2010. Since then, he has focused primarily on numerical methods for quantum systems and has worked on multiple open-source projects (e.g., Qiskit and QuTiP) along that line. He is currently a principal research scientist at IBM, and he is focused on benchmarking quantum software and hardware.

Peter Groszkowski (Added from Oct 16, 2024) Peter is a researcher at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory working in various areas of physics, with emphasis on topics related to quantum computing and information. Beyond physics, he is also interested in all aspects of software development, ranging from numerical simulations to instrumentation control. Peter is a strong advocate of the open-source development model, supporting it whenever possible.

Ryan Hill Ryan is a physicist, software developer, and engineering team leader passionate about quantum computing and cloud HPC. He received his Master’s in engineering physics at Cornell University, where his research focused on quantum machine learning, specifically quantum neural networks. He currently serves as CTO at qBraid, a quantum computing startup based in Chicago, Illinois. In addition to his executive role at qBraid, Ryan is a mentor at the Quantum Open Source Foundation and actively maintains and contributes to several open-source quantum software projects focusing on runtime, transpilers, and compilers.

Shannon Whitlock Shannon Whitlock is a professor of experimental quantum physics at the European Center for Quantum Sciences and the University of Strasbourg, France, and cofounder of the quantum computing startup QPerfect. Shannon completed his PhD at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne in 2007, followed by a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Amsterdam. In 2010, he moved to the University of Heidelberg in Germany, where he started his research group and advanced quantum physics laboratory thanks to a prestigious Emmy Noether grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG). He is the coordinator of the French national public infrastructure for quantum computing aQCess and is strongly involved in major research and training programs at the European level.

Yi-Ting (Tim) Chen Yi-Ting (Tim) Chen is an Applied Scientist at Amazon Braket. His current role focuses on quantum programming experience and accessing quantum hardware. His past research focused on applying atom manipulation to study atomic physics and condensed matter physics, as well as on simulating quantum systems. He studied at Stanford University, where he received his PhD in Applied Physics, and at National Taiwan University, where he received his BS in Physics.

Metriq team at Unitary Fund Also part of the committee are Unitary Fund staff members working on the Metriq project: Dan Strano, Vincent Russo, Kallie Ferguson, Ben Castanon, and Nathan Shammah.