News

AVaQus project ends (September 2024)

A year later than initially expected, the AVaQus project is ending today, September 30th 2024. The closing of this project marks the end of this initial phase in the production of coherent annealing quantum computing technology, where more projects are expected to follow, starting with the EuroQCS coordianted by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, in which IFAE is an academic partner. All deliverables have been submitted in time, while the final project presentation is envisioned towards the end of the fall 2024. 

Novel coherent flux qubit with galvanic coupling demonstrated (August 2024)

    The AVaQus consortium has made a significant development in producing a novel type of coherent superconducting flux qubit that is read out using a galvanic interaction to its readout resonator. The work has been led by the KIT group, with Simon Giesert being the lead author, under the supervision of Prof. Ioan Pop. The flux qubit consist of a single Josephson junction shunted by an inductive loop made out of granular aluminum, a superinductive material. This leads to a flux qubit rf-SQUID-style with a much smaller footprint than its predecessors. The work has been published in August 2024 at Applied Physics Letters

AVAQUS Receives Six-Month Extension, New Project End Date Announced (August 2023)

    In August 2023, the AVAQUS project received a six-month extension, pushing the new project end date to September 30, 2024. This change means that in addition to the previously scheduled review in November 2023, there will be another review in one year, which will be the final review. Details of the extension are expected to be announced in the near future, providing more time to successfully complete the AVAQUS project.

AVaQus at the Spring School on Superconducting Qubit Technology (April 2023)

The Spring School on Superconducting Qubit Technology was organized in Benasque, Spain on  April 11 -- Apr 21 2023 by Pol Forn-Díaz, David López-Núñez and Fabian Zwiehoff  (IFAE, Barcelona)

The AVaQus meeting took place during the school in the Centro de Ciencias de Beasque Pedro Pascual. It was the firs in-person meeting of the project.

Project advisors advisors  Frank Wilhelm (Jullich, Germany), Arkady Fedorov (University of Queensland, Australia) and Tsuyoshi Yamamoto (NEC, Japan) attended the meeting.

The IFF-CSIC Group, partner of AVaQus, Leads Breakthrough in Quantum Annealing Research (February 2023)

  The Madrid-based Instituto de Física Fundamental (IFF-CSIC) group, led by Juanjo García-Ripoll, has published a study in Physical Review Letters. They have discovered a more efficient method for generating thermal quantum states using quantum annealers, the type of quantum computers develped in the contextx of AVaQus. This discovery represents a significant advancement in quantum computing technology, as it outperforms conventional computers in the generation of quantum thermal states. You can find the full reference and details of their research in the following link.

AVaQus partner IFF-CSIC Group Explores Fluxonium Qutrit in New Publication (December 2022)

Researchers from the IFF-CSIC group have published a study titled 'Bound States in the Continuum in a Fluxonium Qutrit.' In this research, they investigate a fluxonium qubit, a type of qubit studied within the AVaQus project, along with its meta-stable states.This study sheds light on the unique properties of the fluxonium qubit and its potential applications in quantum computing. You can access the complete reference and details here: Read more


AVaQus partner Néel Institute - CNRS Grenoble Group Achieves Kerr Reversal and Enhanced Phase Matching in New Parametric Amplifier (April 2022)

A publication from the Néel Institute - CNRS Grenoble group, led by Dr. Nicolas Roch, titled 'Kerr Reversal in Josephson Meta-Material and Traveling Wave Parametric Amplification,' showcases a novel parametric amplifier's functionality. This amplifier leverages the non-linear Kerr effect to improve phase matching and enables central operating point modulation using external magnetic fields. The amplifier's resolution is nearly at the quantum limit, and it boasts a wide bandwidth of several gigahertz. For detailed information on this research, you can refer to the full reference here: Read more

Operating in a deep underground facility improves the locking of gradiometric fluxonium qubits at the sweet spots (08/02/2022)

The KIT team in Germany, in collaboration with the Gran Sasso team in Italy and with help from collaborators in Canada and Romania, demonstrated that shielding from ionizing radiation improves the stability of gradiometric fluxonium qubits locking at the sweet spots. These results illustrate the violent effects of environmental ionizing radiation on superconducting quantum devices, and they further motivate efforts to abate ionizing impacts. Take a look at the publication at: https://dx.doi.org/10.1063/5.0075909."

Three-Josephson Juctions Flux Qubit Couplings (09/11/2021)

"The IFF-CSIC team in Madrid studied the capacitive and inductive coupling between two 3-Josephon junctions flux qubit finding evidence of non-stoquastic interactions and strong coupling." Take a look at the preprint at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.05373."

Observation of two-mode squeezing in a traveling wave parametric amplifier (05/11/2021)

“The CNRS team in Grenoble demonstrated the generation of broadband microwave radiation in a traveling wave parametric amplifier." Enjoy the preprint reading at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.03696

Perspective in Applied Physics Letters (02/09/2021)

The CNRS team in Grenoble has published a perspective paper on Travelling Wave Parametric Amplifiers (TWPAs); Past milestones, open challenges and new research directions with TWPAs are discussed. Take a look a the original publication in Applied Physics Letters and the pre-print on the arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.13033 

New pre-print from IFF-CSIC team (05/08/2021)

"The IFF-CSIC team in Madrid studied the capacitive coupling between a flux qubit and a LC-resonator showing ultrastrong coupling perpendicular to the commonly studied inductive coupling." Take a look at the preprint at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.02549."

Article in Physical Review A (02/07/2021)

IFAE QCT team, in collaboration with Quantic BSC group, have proved that a quantum circuit for a single qubit can approximate any bounded complex function. Simulations and experiments on a real device provided numerical benchmarks. Check out the original publication in Physical Review A and the pre-print on the arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.04032. Also you can find the data related in ZENODO.

Article in EPJ Quantum Technology (27/02/2021)

Read the new open-access article by our coordinator and members of Qilimanjaro published in the EPJ Quantum Technology Special Issue on Quantum Industry: Startup Qilimanjaro—towards a European full-stack coherent quantum annealer platform where AVaQus is highlighted.  Enjoy it!

First pre-print about A reversed Kerr traveling wave parametric amplifier (08/02/2021)

"The CNRS team in Grenoble has demonstrated a novel solution to the phase matching problem in traveling wave parametric amplifiers involving in-situ sign reversal of Kerr nonlinearity." Take a look at the preprint available on arXiv:2101.05815.

Article in Superconductor Week  (03/07/2020)

A new article by Pol Forn-Díaz, coordinator of the project,  talking about AVaQus has been published in Superconductor Week, edition July 03 2020, pages 4-6.  Enjoy the reading!

European Consortium to Develop Quantum Annealer under AVaQus

 

A European consortium has been awarded €3.0 million from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 FET Open for a three-year program under the

AVaQus (Annealing-based VAriational Quantum processors) program to design and fabricate a fivequbit quantum annealer with high connectivity tunable interactions, and long coherence time. This project aims to set the stage for next-generation quantum computing systems capable of performing computations and simulations with far greater speeds and efficiencies than classical computers by

utilizing recent developments in superconducting quantum circuits.

Researcher Pol Forn-Díaz, the head of the Quantum Computing Technologies group at the Institute for High Energy Physics (IFAE) in Barcelona is responsible for initiating and coordinating the project. “As coherent quantum annealing technology has continued its progress, an initial attempt at the FET Quantum Flagship was re-elaborated into a FET-Open proposal, since AVaQus targets truly innovative technologies with significant market potential,” explained Form-Diaz.

 

Quantum Annealers Appropriate for Optimization + Quantum Simulation

 

Quantum annealers are believed to be more suitable for solving certain types of problems than classical processors, with a shorter time to market than universal quantum computers. “Quantum annealers are not universal quantum processors

in the sense that they cannot just solve any type of quantum algorithm,” commented Forn-Diaz. “But the problems they can solve, optimization +

quantum simulation, are very much ubiquitous in our society, hence very relevant.

 

“The technological demands are less than gate-based quantum processors as the system remains at its lowest energy state all the time. This means the quantum annealer size, in number of qubits, can grow very rapidly.”

 

If successful, the system developed by AVaQus would be the first superconducting annealer to perform quantum computation and simulation tasks with hardware designed for coherence. “[This] means that the qubits, and their control and readout circuitry will be designed with the purpose of maintaining a high level of quantum coherence of the qubits,” clarified Forn-Díaz.

 

“By high coherence we mean that the qubit state will not decohere during the duration of the computation. In other words, we will be using the same kind of superconducting qubit technology that is already working well in gate-based digital quantum processors.”

 

Forn Diaz noted that quantum annealing may have a positive effect on coherence: “The hardest problems are ones where the solution, encoded in the lowest energy state of the system, is just marginally below the higher excited levels, and the tiniest amount of noise will take you away from your optimal point.

Another area where coherence seems to help is the speed at which the annealing algorithm can run, as there is a connection between quantum tunneling, which affects the speed at which you can anneal, and low dissipation in the system, something you get when qubits are highly coherent.”

Annealers Use Adiabatic Quantum Computing Techniques

 

The majority of research on quantum systems is centered on universal gate-based quantum computers, an approach that requires sizable arrays of qubits to correct for noise-induced error for operation. Leading quantum computer companies, including IBM, Google and Intel, are currently focused on Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices that are able to function without error correction.

 

“Quantum annealers are different from gate-based quantum processors in that they use adiabatic quantum computing techniques, which do not require quantum gates, to solve problems,” explained Forn-Díaz. “The computation is performed by evolving the system with all interactions among qubits switched off into a state in which interactions dominate and generate strong correlations, all while keeping the system in its ground state. Pictorially, initially all qubits are equal and don't know anything about each other, but at the end of the computation certain qubits influence their neighbors, resulting in a very complicated arrangement of positive and negative interactions, leading to a highly entangled ground state."

 

Noisy Processes Less Damaging to Annealer

 

According to Forn-Diaz, the analog quantum computing of an annealer may be less prone to errors than universal quantum computing systems: “We do not claim that our qubits will be more resistant to quantum gate errors, because there

are no gates used in annealing. What we mean is that the type of errors that plague gate-based quantum processors will not affect us all that much because the way in which information is processed is completely different. In particular, the annealer never leaves the ground state of the system, and therefore the noisy processes that induce decoherence in gate-based processors appear to be less damaging to the operation of a coherent quantum annealer.”

 

To date, Burnaby, British Columbia-based D-Wave Systems has been the primary commercial developer of quantum annealing devices. In spite of their significant technological accomplishments, the extent to which D-Wave’s computing technology qualifies as quantum technology has generated debate by some academics. In particular, some researchers question whether the company’s system has shown quantum entanglement, an indicator that it relies on quantum effects.

 

“Their device is not a coherent annealer, in the sense that the coherence time of qubits is much shorter than the total computational time of their system,” Forn-Diaz pointed out. “Some refer to D-Wave devices as incoherent quantum annealers. 

 

“There is an IARPA-funded project in the US involving groups from around the world named QEO (quantum enhanced optimization) led by MIT that is also aiming at building a coherent quantum annealer. The project is about midway (out of five years) and has so far reported work using 1-2 coherent qubit prototypes.”

 

 

Innovations to Include Qubit-qubit Interactions

 

Forn Diaz explained how the AVaQus team plans to improve upon existing designs: “We want to implement novel types of qubit-qubit couplings which are mathematically harder to deal with for classical computers. In this way, the problems a coherent annealer can solve will be less likely to be solved in a classical computer. The challenge is in identifying such problems.

 

“For that, AVaQus will have three theory/software teams addressing this important front. In annealers you need very large qubit-qubit interactions as compared to gate-based approaches. Also, the interactions must be switchable and adjustable, something that Google recently introduced in their device whereby they claimed quantum supremacy.

 

“In the AVaQus approach, the coupling circuits we aim at developing introduce additional physical effects. If we think of qubits as spin-1/2 particles, it would be as if we would want to have spins interact with more than one component of their spin.

 

“Normally, in annealers and in gate-based processors, the interaction operates along one component, say XX. We want to implement couplings like XX + ZZ, which turn out to be very tough to deal with by classical processors and may lead to the long-sought quantum advantage if one is able to wire up together a sufficiently large amount of qubits.

 

“In no way can we think of outperforming classical processors with five qubits. However, this five-qubit demonstrator will set the path to scaling up to a large-size device that should be the goal of the following generation of devices in a follow-up project.”

 

Annealer Development and Rollout

 

The system will incorporate applications of smallscale quantum annealing algorithms that can be employed for simulations and optimization in logistics, navigation, traffic, finance, quantum chemistry, and machine learning. The qubits will employ aluminum circuits and either silicon or sapphire as substrates. The annealer will need to be cooled via dilution refrigeration to a temperature of 10 mK.

 

The researchers intend to work in two parallel lines of development, each one using a different qubit and coupler type, namely low impedance and high impedance circuits. At the end of the project, one of the goals is to assess which of the two types of qubits is more suitable to scale-up the device in a later project.

 

AVaQus is a consortium of eight European partners consisting of five research centers: IFAE, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the French National Center for (CSIC), and three quantum startup companies: Delft Circuits in the Netherlands, Qilmanajaro Quantum Tech, S.L. (QILI) in Spain, and Heisenberg Quantum Solutions (HQS) in Germany.

They are slated to launch the AVaQus project on October 1, 2020.

OpenSuperQ from the FET Flagship on Quantum Technologies (FET-QT) and the QuantERA-funded project SiUCs (Superinductor-based Quantum Technologies with Ultrastrong Couplings), also coordinated by IFAE, will be collaborating with the AVaQus initiative. Delft, CRNS, and Glasgow will be responsible for designing and fabricating the enabling quantum and classical hardware, while IFAE and KIT will design and validate different types of qubit circuits operating as coherent quantum annealers. HQS, QILI, and CSIC will work on developing quantum software and applications that will eventually run on the coherent quantum annealer, as well as on studying highly connected topologies in larger-scale future devices.

Kick-off meeting  (14/10/2020)

AVaQus, the FET OPEN project on novel ideas for radically new technologies to develop annealing-based variational quantum processors, led by Dr. Pol Forn-Diaz from IFAE, on Wednesday October 14th, 2020.

The project launch took place virtually with a conference call between the 8 partner institutions.

AVaQus has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement Nº 899561 to develop an integrated, small-size and fully-functional quantum processor that demonstrates coherent quantum annealing with 5 qubits fully connected in a multi-coupler network in the next 3 years. Stay tuned and follow us on Twitter

New positions  (08/2020)

Our new consortium is opening postdoc and PhD positions, 

with contracts starting in October. Please check  the announcements on IFAE´s  website

PhD position and Postdoc Position

Press Release  (04/2020)

Official announcement of the project, its motivation, its scope, its ambition and how it will  impact the world of superconducting quantum technologies, quantum computing and quantum simulation. Read the full press release on IFAE's website.

New positions (03/2020)

Our new consortium is opening postdoc and PhD positions, with contracts starting in september or later. Please see our job marketplace.