Taking those questions in reverse order, Aliro Quantum is a young Harvard lab spin-out seeking to deliver the quantum networking technology many believe is critical to scaling up quantum computers. Aliro contends that clustering moderate size quantum computers, say 1000-qubit systems (still not buildable, though IBM says perhaps soon) or bigger, is the most likely way to create something resembling a monolithic 1M-qubit-or-more-sized quantum computer large enough to solve practical problems.
That thesis is at the core of our business model and of many others, said Prineha Narang, Aliro CTO, founder, Harvard professor. People, mostly from the hardware side, are trying to do this with us. Were interfacing down to the hardware getting down to the FPGAs were just not building the quantum hardware. We see the path to scale being through these networks, and those types of networks being part of the bigger picture of these entanglement-generating and entanglement-using large scale networks.
Whether these connected quantum computers end up being called clusters or distributed computing (both terms have currency now) or something else isnt yet clear, she said. Narang and Harvard colleague, John Philbin, have an interesting recentpaper(Computational Materials Insights Into Solid-State Multiqubit Systems) in the APS journal PRX Quantum.
There are, of course, many other quantum networking applications, but in essence they all connect some sort of quantum device (e.g. a sensor) to another quantum device. It should be noted not everyone agrees that clustering is the only or best path to scale-up quantum computers. PsiQuantum, for example, says its photonics-based quantum computer thats leveraging semiconductor fabrication techniques will scale to a million or more qubits.
That said, there is broad agreement that practical, scalable quantum networking is an important ingredient in the development of a robust quantum information sciences landscape. DOE has several related projects and there are similar efforts around the globe.
How do these devices work? Broadly, a quantum network must interface with a quantum computer (or other quantum device), capture and faithfully transmit a qubit-based information stream to another device able to use the data. Accomplishing that requires dealing with familiar quantum challenges: generating entanglement, managing coherency duration, enacting error correction, using quantum memory, and to reach any distance (WANs) reliable repeaters. Also, dont forget there are currently numerous qubit technologies such as semiconductor-based superconducting, trapped ions, cold atom, photonics, etc. A generalizable quantum network would need to be able to interface with any of them.
A positive for quantum networks is mature optical technology; high-quality optic fiber is a good transmission medium and the most viable current option. Aliro is focused on quantum network control plane and protocol development. It is leveraging quantum and traditional networking hardware. Think of Aliro as a little like Mellanox for quantum networking, said Narang.
Putting aside, for a moment, remaining technical challenges, consider Narangs ambitious milestones for Aliro and forecast for quantum networking:
Aliro was spun out of Narangs Harvard lab in 2019 where her research focuses on a variety of quantum topics spanning quantum materials, quantum information, and quantum molecular dynamics. The Aliro headcount is roughly 20 and growing, and Narang cites the greater Boston areas wealth of high tech resources (university, networking tech expertise, talent) as an important factor in deciding to set up shop there.
Weve been developing a control plane. Some of the things Im going to say are very similar to the language youd hear from classical networking. Were thinking about the quantum version in the same way. It has various layers, including a physical layer, like a classical network. The temptation is always, even in classical networking, to say lets do everything in the physical layer because the hardware is becoming better, said Narang.
But the reason classical networking has been so successful is that the details of the physical layer are abstracted away into some of these other layers. This is why every time theres a hardware upgrade, how I think about the internet doesnt change. That abstraction is what enables us to think about issues of timing, synchronization, and connecting these devices in the control plane. Thats really where the key value is.
The idea is to hide the underlying complexity such as qubit modality. Whats the right architecture for connecting to superconducting and trapped ion systems? What amount of architecting with a control plane is needed versus how much is overkill? So what can you do over a quantum channel versus what can you do over the classical channel in order to get the timing right or to get some of the synchronization problems solved? said Narang citing key questions.
We want people to come into this field and not have to figure out all of these other pieces, but to be able to easily interface with these systems. The phrase plug-and-play gets used a lot in the sales. [Quantum networking] is still not plug-and-play but its certainly become much more accessible to a broader set of engineers and scientists than five years ago, she said.
Besides clustering quantum computers, there is a major push to develop a so-called quantum internet. Among potential applications identified in a 2018 Science article are: secure communication, clock synchronization, extending the baseline of telescopes, secure identification, achieving efficient agreement on distributed data, exponential savings in communication, quantum sensor networks, as well as secure access to remote quantum computers in the cloud. (Figure from Science article, 10-31-2018, shown below.)
From a hardware standpoint, key components are missing at the moment, quantum repeaters being a significant one. This is an area where my lab does a lot of work in looking at how we think about third-generation quantum repeaters that actually can enable the kind of capacity you need to have a meaningful large-scale quantum network using solid state components. Theres a lot of talk about this now. DOE has announced a very big roadmap and blueprint to connect the various DOE labs, which, of course, are all across the country. Essentially, this is the quantum version of the ARPANET. And there are some hardware advances needed before we can talk about connecting something as big as that.
Having said that, a metropolitan area network is definitely much more achievable. This is where youre within the repeater-less bound. Theres actually fiber between Harvard, MIT, and Lincoln Labs and these things can be connected. Now, over a network like that, youre not having a very high bandwidth conversation with your buddies on the other side. But these are entanglement using and generating networks, theyre a proof of concept, testbeds. We have one here. Theres one at Argonne and Fermi Lab in the Chicago area, thats getting a lot of attention. These are attempts at figuring out what are the components, both hardware and software, that will become part of a larger scalable network, said Narang.
Narang noted that codesign is important in quantum networking development. As much as we are abstracting away from the hardware, there are also many hardware choices that need to be made that are informed by the protocols (software), said Narang.
Theres a temptation from the hardware community to say, Were going to build out the hardware, these folks are going to throw some software on there and its all going to be great. It turns out theres some hard constraints that are imposed on the hardware, based on some of the protocols and algorithms of interest. So codesign has been a really key component here. Were collaborating very closely with the DOE labs, in particular ESnet based out of LBNL though they (ESnet) have fiber all across the country. [We are working with them] on thinking about how we can emulate these long-haul links because thats where we see the value. We dont see value in simple quantum key distribution (QKD). There are people doing it, but you can look up very public documents from the DOD and NSA that say that they dont view the path in secure communication to be at all related to QKD. So for entanglement generating and using networks, the biggest value really is from having these components and getting to getting to scale.
Aliro envisions being able to spec out the entire network. This would entail having Aliro boxes at both ends and gaining access to existing high-quality fiber in between. Generating entanglement and sharing entanglement are core capabilities required. Quantum memory is also important (needed for repeaters). Routing is also a challenge and Aliro has put forward a set of protocols for routing, said Narang, who is working with the Quantum Internet Research Group (IETF Quantum IRG) seeking to set standards and is active in the NSF-affiliated Center for Quantum Networks.
She expects there to be a variety of node types, think smart and less so. Fees for entanglement-as-a-service would likely be based on both transmission fidelity and transmission rates. Big customers such as a bank might want exotic boxes and pay a premium; others might not require that. The Aliro website lists quantum-secure communications, improved GPS precision and reliability, and accurate positioning, navigation and timing as potential application for its entanglement-as-a-service (EaaS). That seems less connected to the idea of scaling up quantum computers via clustering. To some extent, the promotion may be aspirational as the quantum network world is still nascent.
Were partnering with hardware vendors that weve established relationships with. Im being intentionally a little vague here. Its a tight rope here, said Narang. Currently, if you deliver a network, its going to be slow, the entanglement rates are very slow. And its very small in the sense of the geography because were waiting for repeaters to come online to take this across the country. However, there are a lot of things that we can do to anticipate what kinds of repeaters well have. Were working with various types of architectures at testbeds like, the folks at Argonne, and the folks at Brookhaven. They have different realizations of what a repeater would look like.
Like many, Narang thinks moving quantum processing out of icy cold dilution refrigerators (a few degrees Kelvin) will be an important step. Theres a strong push in my research to look at quantum memories that are at temperatures above four Kelvin that can operate with reasonable fidelity at that temperature, because we think that [operating] with liquid nitrogen cooled (77 kelvin) is no problem, but as soon as youre talking about, you know, these ultra-low temperature, pumped-helium systems, and there are. Shes a fan of solid state memory citing diamond and silicon carbide (color centers) which could offer higher temperature operating ranges.
Choosing partners and technologies is tricky. Weve been in deep conversations with both Google and Amazon and they have very different roadmaps going forward and we havent ourselves decided if would try to achieve both or pick one. There are reasons to pick and there are reasons to not pick, she said.
Likewise, photonics expertise will be critical. Xanadu and PsiQuantum are among the more prominent quantum computer companies trying to develop optically-based systems. PsiQuantum has been very direct about its plans to launch a million-qubit quantum computer.
We have talked with them, said Narang. We dont currently have a signed partnership with them. Were being very cautious to not get tied to one particular photonic platform. We think that we will need a long-term photonic platform partner, whether its going to be PsiQuantum or Xanadu, or another, were not sure. They, on their roadmaps, dont have plans for integrating quantum repeaters.
Thats okay, said Narang, but Aliro would prefer somebody on the photonics side thats interested both in these connected photonic processors, and how you bring in the repeater into the picture.
Stay tuned.
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Quantum Networking and Clustering What Is It? Why Should You Care? Who's Aliro? - HPCwire