Welcome to the Quantum Realm. 

Enjoy today’s breakdown of news, research, & events within quantum.

🕸️ Kolmogorov-Arnold networks were all the rage in your AI feeds — now they’re taking on quantum circuit optimization. Quantum & AI are once again the peanut butter and chocolate of the compute world. Plus, the QKD market is reaching great heights and there’s a new state vying for supreme quantum status.

🗓️ UPCOMING

Sunday, June 30 | QTM-X Quantum Education Series 5 of 10 Quantum Hardware

Monday, July 1 | TQN Quantum Safe Transition Working Group

📰 NEWS QUICK BYTES

🏆️ Quantum makes the list of Forrester’s tech trends: Forrester's trends report highlights ten essential technologies for companies to keep a close eye on, including generative AI, IoT security, and quantum security. Short-term benefits focus on AI-driven content and software development, while mid-term gains involve AI agents and autonomous mobility. Long-term trends emphasize Extended Reality and Zero Trust Edge, while also predicting significant future disruptions in fields like quantum security.

🔍️ Inside Qiskit: A comprehensive overview of the Qiskit SDK details its architecture, core components, and design philosophy. Emphasizing quantum circuits, modularity, and the balance between performance and usability, it showcases how Qiskit helps solve complex problems in quantum information science by integrating Python and Rust.

📈 QKD market soars: IQT recent research report forecasts significant growth in the quantum key distribution market, from $269 million in 2024 to $9.1 billion by 2033. The report profiles 36 QKD suppliers and major global deployments, highlighting advances in QKD technology, such as achieving 1,002 km QKD over ultra-low-loss fiber. It also discusses the potential for QKD-as-a-service for cost-effective, secure data transfer solutions without requiring expensive equipment or specialized talent.

💼 A modest $20mill for the Army’s quantum endeavors: Rep. Nancy Mace proposes $20 million for establishing a Quantum Computing Center of Excellence within the Army. This initiative, part of the fiscal 2025 Defense Department appropriations bill, would provide an opportunity to upgrade the military's capabilities in quantum computing and information science. The proposed center will focus on using these advanced quantum technologies to give the U.S. military a technological edge, particularly in areas like quantum computing integrated photonics, superconducting systems, and trapped ions.

🌟 Watch out Illinois, QuantumCT is on a mission in Connecticut: QuantumCT, a public-private partnership in Connecticut, is driving forward quantum technology research through seed grants awarded to nine local research groups. These grants fund projects aimed at solving practical problems relevant to industries such as aerospace, biotech, and life sciences. Key projects include developing robust sensors for navigation in extreme environments, creating new algorithms for quantum computing to optimize logistics and drug development, and exploring hybrid quantum-classical approaches for drug safety testing. Their goal is to establish Connecticut as a global hub for quantum technology.

📚️ Quantum workshop on error mitigation: The Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage at Brookhaven National Laboratory is hosting a virtual workshop on quantum error mitigation techniques, including understanding of how these techniques improve the performance of noisy quantum devices and offering practical insights into quantum computing's current and future capabilities. The free workshop will run in August — sign up at the link.

☕️ FRESHLY BREWED RESEARCH

KANQAS: Kolmogorov Arnold Network for Quantum Architecture Search: The article introduces Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks for quantum architecture search and show that KANs offer higher fidelity and efficiency in generating quantum circuits compared to traditional multi-layer perceptrons. KANs also require fewer parameters and provide better interpretability, but at the cost of increased execution time per episode. Breakdown here.

Toward Programmable Quantum Processors Based on Spin Qubits with Mechanically Mediated Interactions and Transport: A new method for scalable quantum information processing is proposed by the coupling of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond nanopillars to magnetically functionalized silicon nitride mechanical resonators. This allows for programmable, long-range entanglement and coherent manipulation of spin qubits, which is a key step towards the development of practical quantum processors. Key results include successful spin-mechanical coupling, coherence preservation during qubit transport, and high-quality resonator performance. Breakdown here.

Optimal Zeno Dragging for Quantum Control: Two theoretical methods to achieve optimal quantum control using the quantum Zeno effect are explored including a "shortcut to Zeno" approach analogous to shortcuts to adiabaticity and a Chantasri-Dressel-Jordan stochastic action-based method for optimizing measurement-driven control. These methods were applied to control the state of a qubit and both approaches are shown to yield optimal control by matching the unitary motion with the Zeno-monitored eigenstate.

YAQQ: Yet Another Quantum Quantizer -- Design Space Exploration of Quantum Gate Sets using Novelty Search: YAQQ is a software tool for comparative analysis of quantum gate sets. It explores the design space of quantum gate sets to optimize the decomposition of quantum algorithms into quantum circuits while emphasizing the relationship between gate sets and algorithm fidelity and runtime.

Universal scalable characterization and correction of pulse distortions in controlled quantum systems: A method for accurately characterizing and correcting pulse distortions in quantum computing systems is presented. This approach uses a universal model based on the system function and digital filters for predistortion and was experimentally validated on superconducting qubit flux control lines.

Low-Crosstalk, Silicon-Fabricated Optical Waveguides for Laser Delivery to Matter Qubits: CMOS foundry-produced silicon nitride optical waveguides are designed for addressing trapped ion qubits with minimal crosstalk. These waveguides can deliver laser light to closely spaced barium ions with a crosstalk reduction of over 50 dB, which is essential for scalable quantum information processing. Additionally, the waveguides were successfully used to perform Doppler cooling on a chain of eight barium ions.

UNTIL TOMORROW.

BREAKDOWN

KANQAS: Kolmogorov Arnold Network for Quantum Architecture Search

🔍️ SIGNIFICANCE: 

• Multi-layer perceptrons have been used in reinforcement learning for quantum architecture structure to automate the optimization of quantum circuits. However, MLPs notoriously suffer from interpretability challenges due to the hidden layers in their architecture. They also require a high number of parameters. On the other hand, Kolmogorov-Arnold networks have recently been introduced. They require less parameters and have acheived stronger results as compared to MLPs, and with smaller network sizes. Since KAN is a more efficient alternative, it makes sense to consider them alongside reinforcment learning for quantum architecture structure. This study evaluates their practicality within this use case across various environments.

🧪 METHODOLOGY: 

• Ultimately, KAN were integrated into the reinforcement learning framework used for QAS by replacing the MLP component of double deep q-networks.

• Using a classical optimizer to determine parameters via the variational principle in a feedback loop, quantum circuits were constructed using a template with parametric quantum gates.

• The performance of the KAN was evaluated in both noiseless and noisy scenarios by comparing it to traditional MLP-based architectures.

• Simulations generated multi-qubit maximally entangled states and measured the probability of success and optimal solutions.

• Fidelity-based reward functions were used to guide the RL agent in optimizing the quantum circuits.

📊 OUTCOMES & OUTLOOK: 

• In noiseless simulations, KAN demonstrated a higher probability of success and generated more optimal quantum circuit configurations compared to MLPs. Specifically, KAN achieved a 36.31% success rate in the final interval, compared to 35.36% for MLP.

• In noisy simulations, KAN outperformed MLPs in achieving higher fidelity for both Bell and GHZ state preparations. For instance, KAN achieved a fidelity of 73.28% under certain noise conditions, while MLPs required deeper and wider networks to reach comparable fidelity.

• KAN required significantly fewer learnable parameters than MLPs, highlighting its efficiency. For example, KAN required only 64 parameters for Bell state preparation compared to 480 for MLPs.

• The primary disadvantage of KAN was the higher execution time per episode, approximately 120 times slower than MLPs. However, this trade-off could be mitigated by KAN's superior performance and fewer parameters.

BREAKDOWN

Toward Programmable Quantum Processors Based on Spin Qubits with Mechanically Mediated Interactions and Transport

🔍️ SIGNIFICANCE: 

• Traditional methods of the controlled interaction and entanglement of spin qubits in multiqubit systems have limitations in terms of interaction distance and fabrication precision. By using nanomechanical resonators to mediate interactions between distant spin qubits the connectivity and entanglement of qubits over long distances is possible, which indicates the potential for scalable quantum information processing.

🧪 METHODOLOGY: 

• NV centers in diamond nanopillars are brought into close proximity to micromagnets on silicon nitride nanobeams to create the high magnetic field gradients necessary for strong spin-mechanical coupling.

• The nuclear spin of NV centers as a quantum memory was used to preserve coherence during qubit transport.

• A sequence of microwave pulses were applied to entangle the electron and nuclear spins and allow for coherent manipulation even in the presence of changing magnetic fields.

📊 OUTCOMES & OUTLOOK: 

• The researchers measured a spin-mechanical coupling strength of 7.7 Hz and they successfully preserved the coherence of NV centers during mechanical transport which shows that qubits can be moved without significant decoherence.

• The ability to transport qubits mechanically and mediate their interactions over long distances provides a scalable solution for building larger quantum processors.

• These programmable interactions between qubits are relevant to platforms based on neutral atoms and trapped ions.

• This also opens new possibilities for entanglement-enhanced sensing applications where long-range interactions between quantum sensors could be used for high-precision measurements in condensed matter physics and other fields.