Rice University has joined the U.S. Department of Energy Quantum Science Center, expanding the university’s role in a national effort to develop fault-tolerant quantum computers capable of solving scientific problems beyond the reach of today’s systems.
Tirthak Patel, assistant professor of computer science at Rice, will lead the university’s contribution, developing and evaluating quantum error-correction decoding methods on high-performance computing platforms. His research group will receive around $900,000 over five years through the DOE-funded center, headquartered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
“Reliable error correction is one of the biggest challenges in making quantum computing useful for accelerating scientific discovery,” Patel said. “Our work is focused on developing methods that can scale to future systems and support practical scientific applications.”
Patel’s team is contributing to the QSC’s research on quantum-accelerated high-performance computing (QHPC) architectures, which seek to advance fault-tolerant quantum computers for scientific applications.
The research includes demonstrating the extraction, decoding and correction of error signals from various quantum applications to evaluate multiple quantum error-correction technologies and develop scalable, hierarchical decoding methods that can run across multiple HPC architectures. It also addresses practical challenges such as latency, throughput and data movement that are essential for real-time quantum error correction.
Patel is collaborating with Jack Lange at ORNL, who leads the QHPC Controls Project.
“Advancing quantum computing requires the combination of expertise across the DOE and academia in both quantum systems and high-performance computing,” Lange said. “This partnership between ORNL and Rice brings together important strengths in both.”
The QSC, established in 2020 under the National Quantum Initiative Act, is one of the DOE’s five National Quantum Information Science Research Centers. It brings together national laboratories, universities and industry partners, including IBM, AMD, IQM, Quantinuum and Riverlane, to advance quantum information science.
The DOE in September renewed the QSC’s funding through 2030. The center has planned funding of $125 million over five years with $25 million allocated for the first year. The QSC’s research efforts span software, hybrid algorithms, QHPC architectures, scientific applications and experimental validation in support of its mission to create the first fault-tolerant ecosystem for hybrid QHPC.
“Developing practical quantum computers depends on collaboration across quantum science, computing and engineering,” said Travis Humble, director of the QSC. “Rice University brings valuable expertise that will assist the QSC in advancing scalable quantum error correction and fulfilling DOE’s mission of developing a fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2028.”
By combining expertise in quantum computing and high-performance computing, Rice researchers will work with scientists across the QSC to help advance the fault-tolerant systems needed for future scientific discovery.