Because evolution is unitary.
If you work on a open source quantum software and have a project you would like to speak about, please drop us a line!
Upcoming talks
- 28 January, 2021 - 12pm EST/5pm GMT
Intro to QuTiP: A Quantum Toolbox in Python by Shahnawaz Ahmed
About the talk
QuTiP: A quantum toolbox in Python, is one of the most popular tools to simulate open quantum systems – but it has expanded beyond that over the years. It is a simple but powerful library that, used by students, researchers, engineers, is having a tremendous impact on quantum science research. QuTiP is also Unitary Fund’s first affiliated project. In this talk, I will introduce the library and take the example of some new developments in QuTiP to show the ease with which one can simulate open quantum systems as well as contribute to the development of such open-source software tools to promote reproducibility and therefore accelerate the adoption of a particular simulation technique across the research community.
About the speaker
Shahnawaz Ahmed is a graduate student at the Wallenberg Center for Quantum Technology at Chalmers University, Sweden. His research interest lies in the intersection of machine learning and quantum computing. He also works on numerical approaches to solve problems in open quantum systems and is a member of the QuTiP development team.
Previous talks
- 03 December, 2020 - 12pm EST/5pm GMT
Intro to qcor: Extending C++ for Heterogeneous Quantum-Classical Computing by Alex McCaskey
About the talk
We present qcor - a language extension to C++ and compiler implementation that enables heterogeneous quantum-classical programming, compilation, and execution in a single-source context. Our work provides a first-of-its-kind C++ compiler enabling high-level quantum kernel (function) expression in a quantum-language agnostic manner, as well as a hardware-agnostic, retargetable compiler workflow targeting a number of physical and virtual quantum computing backends. qcor leverages novel Clang plugin interfaces and builds upon the XACC system-level quantum programming framework to provide a state-of-the-art integration mechanism for quantum-classical compilation that leverages the best from the community at-large. qcor translates quantum kernels ultimately to the XACC intermediate representation, and provides user-extensible hooks for quantum compilation routines like circuit optimization, analysis, and placement. This work details the overall architecture and compiler workflow for qcor, and provides a number of illuminating programming examples demonstrating its utility for near-term variational tasks, quantum algorithm expression, and feed-forward error correction schemes.
About the speaker
Alex McCaskey is a research scientist in the Computer Science and Mathematics Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He serves as the Software Lead for the Quantum Computing Institute at ORNL and is the Project Lead for the XACC quantum framework and the QCOR quantum-classical C++ compiler. He received his Masters in Physics from Virginia Tech and BS degrees in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Tennessee.
- 12 November, 2020 - 12pm EST/5pm GMT
Intro to qrack: a framework for fast quantum simulation by Daniel Strano
About the talk
vm6502q/qrack is a quantum computer simulation framework designed for the highest performance on the widest possible range of consumer-grade "classical" hardware platforms. It has 0 required external software dependencies besides C++11 standard, it optionally supports OpenCL accelerators back to the v1.1 standard, including multi-accelerator operation, and it prides itself on its "novel optimization layer." The speaker will outline the many features of the framework, including the theory behind the novel optimization layer, culminating in a simulator stack whose general use case is also its highest performance "Swiss Army knife" simulator, which has been integrated with a much wider developing quantum open source stack via plugins. Quantitative benchmarks will also be discussed, including performance on the quantum Fourier transform and an example of a "quantum volume"-type random universal circuit. Check out the project Discord for more info!
About the speaker
Daniel Strano is senior software developer for PDHI (Basking Ridge, NJ). He holds a B.A. in physics and has worked as a data scientist or software engineer for companies including Pacific Northwest National Laboratories (Richland, WA) and S&A Technologies, LLC (Newark, NJ). For the past three years, he is the lead developer of the vm6502q/qrack quantum computing simulation framework, along with Benn Bollay, which has received a Unitary Fund grant. His personal research and literary blog is at ultraphrenia.com, including information and videos about his open source extensions to the OpenRelativity physics module for Unity3D, by the MIT Game Lab, to which he is a community contributor via a personal fork on GitHub.