Q-CTRL, the Australia-based start-up focusing on quantum infrastructure software, today announced that its performance-management software, Fire Opal, will be natively integrated into four of the world’s most advanced quantum computing platforms — IBM Quantum services, Rigetti Quantum Cloud Services (QCS), Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) Cloud QCaaS devices, and Diraq’s Silicon quantum processors.

While clearly good news for Q-CTRL, the native integration of third-party tools and middleware by prominent quantum computer makers is also indication of the growth and maturation of a broader quantum infrastructure software ecosystem. Most quantum computer developers still describe themselves as full-stack companies, but are also increasingly using third-party tools.

The integration of Q-CTRL Fire Opal performance management suite into diverse quantum computer types is a strong validation point. Many observers expect quantum system users won’t want to use many different stacks that lock them into a single quantum computer brand or type. Integrating tools like Fire Opal into QC vendor stacks may simplify software clutter and improve performance.

“At Q-CTRL we’ve had a single-minded focus on how infrastructure software can help deliver the best possible performance from quantum hardware,” said Q-CTRL CEO and founder Michael J. Biercuk in the official announcement. “The first time we saw over a factor of a thousand improvement on a commercial quantum computer we knew this could change the direction of the industry.”

“Now we’re thrilled that through new partnerships with some of the world’s leading quantum computing hardware vendors, we can seamlessly deliver real value to an increasing range of users. These partnerships have been built over the long-term through trusted relationships and real demonstrations of what’s possible, and they’re built to last,” he said.

Q-CTRL’s Fire Opal is designed to improve the usability and capability of quantum computing by minimizing errors and abstracting the details of how to operate hardware for peak performance. Errors in quantum computers constitute the biggest bottleneck in the technology’s advancement today. Managing these errors consumes a significant amount of time for hardware vendors and end users seeking to achieve meaningful results on the path to quantum advantage.

Q-CTRL says “Application-oriented benchmarking shows that Fire Opal delivers massive improvements across any algorithm, including challenging but essential modules such as the Quantum Fourier Transform, Grover’s Search, and the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm. Recently published results leveraging Q-CTRL’s performance-management integration with IBM quantum hardware show that end users are setting new world records in Quantum Machine Learning and Quantum Phase Estimation for quantum chemistry using Fire Opal,”

“We achieved a significant leap forward in accurately calculating the physical properties of materials, demonstrating a five-fold increase in achievable circuit width over previous Quantum Phase Estimation studies,” said Shu Kanno, Scientist at Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation in the release. “These results were enabled by Q-CTRL’s performance management, which made it possible to run deeper and wider circuits on IBM Quantum systems.”

Given the modest scale of quantum computers today, Q-CTRL contends that Fire Opal enables efficient and hardware-agnostic error-suppression technology that reduces the likelihood that errors occur in quantum computer hardware and delivers real value to application developers. Q-CTRL’s latest innovations in efficient Quantum Error Correction position its technology to be a permanent part of the quantum stack as system sizes scale.

In its announcement, Q-CTRL provided several testimonials from collaborators:

Rigetti 

Q-CTRL is happy to announce that Fire Opal will soon be natively integrated with Rigetti’s 84-qubit Ankaa-2 quantum system through Rigetti Quantum Cloud Service (QCS) by the end of the year.

Across application benchmarks in optimization and hardware-performance metrics such as Quantum Volume, Fire Opal has been validated to boost capability on Rigetti devices without user intervention. By reducing errors and increasing the device’s effectiveness, this integration enables users to execute more complex circuits, supporting potentially larger and more sophisticated applications.

Rigetti Ankaa-2 device users will be able to achieve improved performance on Rigetti’s largest hardware model to power the quantum algorithm research critical to domains such as optimization, quantum chemistry, quantum simulation, and quantum machine learning.

This integration is built on nearly five years of collaboration and commercial partnership. In April Q-CTRL became a founding member of Rigetti’s Novera QPU Partner Program, bringing automation technology for research teams to Rigetti’s locally deployed QPU offerings.

“As we continue to scale the size of quantum processors along with qubit performance, the combination of Rigetti hardware plus Q-CTRL performance management software can help bring us all one step closer to practical quantum advantage,” said David Rivas, Chief Technology Officer at Rigetti. “This successful integration demonstrates the value of collaboration across the quantum ecosystem and is an exciting outcome of our longtime partnership with Q-CTRL.”

Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC)

Q-CTRL is bringing its Fire Opal performance management technology to OQC’s latest Toshiko devices, with technical benchmarks to be showcased later in the year. Building on last year’s results demonstrating >100X performance enhancement on small-scale Lucy devices, this native integration will give users access to best-in-class performance management software combined with OQC’s novel Coaxmon architecture.

This partnership will bring Fire Opal directly to the data center, building on OQC’s Cloud data center colocation model with Equinix. This world-first model innovation enables real-world applications to be accessed with ultra-low latency and maximum security. All future deployments of OQC hardware can integrate Fire Opal by default to deliver greater performance and simplicity to enterprise customers.

“Q-CTRL performance management will enable algorithms valuable to enterprise to run on our latest devices with peak performance,” said Simon Phillips, Chief Technology Officer at Oxford Quantum Circuits. “We are very excited to work with Q-CTRL to demonstrate the need for different teams and specialties to come together to democratise quantum computing and enable previously out-of-reach outcomes.”

Diraq

Q-CTRL and Diraq, global pioneer in silicon quantum computing technology, are excited to announce a planned integration of Fire Opal with Diraq’s Silicon-spin-qubit quantum processors as they are delivered for both cloud and on-premises access. This builds on last year’s announcement of multiple R&D engagements as both companies focus on delivering mature commercial offerings to further optimize the strategic development of silicon quantum processors.

Diraq’s approach to building quantum processors is unique and rigorous in addressing some of the same challenges of noise and errors endemic to all quantum computers. Q-CTRL’s error-suppressing technology is validated to work across all different qubit technologies, including through multiple research demonstrations in silicon qubits.

Earlier this year the Diraq team unveiled its partnerships with Global Foundries and IMEC – world leaders in large-scale semiconductor design and manufacturing – as it seeks to bring million-qubit devices to market, leveraging the unique advantages of its silicon platform. This integration represents a major step towards accelerating value delivery from the most advanced silicon quantum processors.