QDev Seminar: Dave Wecker

Language-Integrated Quantum Operations:
A Software Architecture for Quantum Computing

Compilers and computer-aided design tools will be essential for quantum computing. At this event, Dave Wecker will present a computer-aided design flow, called LIQ, which transforms a high-level language program, representing a quantum algorithm, into a technology-specific implementation. He’ll trace the significant steps in this flow and illustrate the transformations to the representation of the quantum program.

Dave will also describe, in detail, the low-level quantum language and the quantum simulator within this design flow. LIQ is an attempt to remedy many of the difficulties in quantum programming and simulation (namely difficulties in debugging, visualization, and exponential growth in memory), as well as make it possible for a wider audience to design, implement, and test quantum algorithms. It provides a functional language (based on F#) that is efficient for programming and allows a combination of classical and quantum operations. In addition, this advanced memory model allows simulation of a large numbers of qubits, and also uses parallel hardware for processing efficiency. Dave will demonstrate the capabilities of LIQ and simulate several quantum algorithms. Shor’s algorithm has been fully implemented in LIQ; we can factor numbers from 15 to 8189 on a standard desktop and display the corresponding circuit diagrams.