Paper: 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗤𝘂𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗺 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 – 𝗣𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗧𝗼𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿

𝗗𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗤𝘂𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗺 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴: 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗣𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
How can several smaller quantum computers be connected so that they work together as one powerful system? This idea is called Distributed Quantum Computing (DQC). It could make it possible to run much larger and more powerful algorithms than a single chip could handle on its own.

In our new work, we studied how different architectures of variational quantum circuits (VQCs) behave in such a distributed setting, specifically in the context of a classification task from Quantum Machine Learning (QML) within DQC. Using simulations, we tested how circuits perform when multiple quantum processors are linked, and how much entanglement between them is actually required.

The results show that circuits with a smart balance of local and global entanglement are more robust to noise than standard approaches. This suggests that well-designed circuit architectures could enable distributed quantum computing to achieve better results in the near future.

Our paper "Evaluating Variational Quantum Circuit Architectures for Distributed Quantum Computing" has been accepted at IEEE QAI 2025 and is available as a preprint here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.12005


The paper was authored by Leo Sünkel, Jonas Stein, Jonas Nüßlein, Tobias Rohe, and Claudia Linnhoff-Popien.
Supported by the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs (6GQT project) and the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR).