Scientists are using NVIDIA cuQuantum with Xanadu’s PennyLane to accelerate quantum simulations on supercomputers for the first time. The Perlmutter supercomputer at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) is using the latest version of PennyLane, a quantum programming framework from Xanadu. This open-source software lets simulations run on high-performance clusters of NVIDIA GPUs. The software simplifies the complex job of accelerating massive simulations of quantum systems.
“When we started work in 2022 with cuQuantum on a single GPU, we got 10x speedups pretty much across the board … we hope to scale by the end of the year to 1,000 nodes — that’s 4,000 GPUs — and that could mean simulating more than 40 qubits,”
Lee J. O’Riordan, a senior quantum software developer at Xanadu.
Quantum Simulations Accelerated by Supercomputers
Scientists are now able to accelerate quantum simulations at a supercomputing scale, thanks to NVIDIA cuQuantum and Xanadu’s PennyLane. Researchers, including those at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, are preparing to run quantum computing simulations on a supercomputer for the first time, using new software. The Perlmutter supercomputer at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) is utilising the latest version of PennyLane, a quantum programming framework from Xanadu, a company based in Toronto. This open-source software, which builds on the NVIDIA cuQuantum software development kit, allows simulations to run on high-performance clusters of NVIDIA GPUs.
The Power of PennyLane and NVIDIA cuQuantum
The multi-node version of PennyLane, used in conjunction with the NVIDIA cuQuantum SDK, simplifies the complex task of accelerating large-scale simulations of quantum systems. This software is crucial for researchers who need to process large datasets. For instance, it will be used to run programs across as many as 256 NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs on Perlmutter to simulate about three dozen qubits, the powerful calculators used by quantum computers. This is approximately twice the number of qubits that most researchers can model currently.
Quantum computing is being utilised in various fields, including high-energy physics, machine learning, chemistry, and materials science. It is also being used in corporate research and development centres. For instance, Xanadu is assisting companies like Rolls-Royce in developing quantum algorithms to design advanced jet engines for sustainable aviation, and Volkswagen Group in inventing more powerful batteries for electric cars.
Future Projects on Perlmutter
At NERSC, at least four other projects could produce results on the Perlmutter supercomputer this year using multi-node PennyLane. These include efforts from NASA Ames and the University of Alabama. Tools like PennyLane are key to extending the capabilities of classical computers and preparing for running algorithms on large-scale quantum computers.
The Evolution and Impact of PennyLane
PennyLane is a product of a novel idea. It adapts popular deep learning techniques like backpropagation and tools like PyTorch to programming quantum computers. Xanadu designed the code to run across as many types of quantum computers as possible, which led to its quick adoption in the quantum community after its introduction in a 2018 paper. The software’s performance is continually being improved, with plans to scale to 1,000 nodes, potentially simulating more than 40 qubits by the end of the year. This performance boost will be used to test ideas for building better quantum systems, enabling new software features in PennyLane that, in turn, enable more system performance.
“This opens the door to letting even my interns run some of the largest simulations — that’s why I’m so excited,”
Brookhaven’s Shinjae Yoo, whose team has six projects using PennyLane in the pipeline.
“Researchers in my field of chemistry want to study molecular complexes too large for classical computers to handle,” said Katherine Klymko. “Tools like Pennylane are key to let them extend what they can currently do classically to prepare for eventually running algorithms on large-scale quantum computers.”
“There was engagement with our content, making cutting-edge research accessible, and people got excited,” recalled Josh Izaac, director of product at Xanadu and a quantum physicist who was an author of the paper and a developer of PennyLane.
“We wanted to extend our work to even larger workloads, so when we heard NVIDIA was adding multi-node capability to cuQuantum, we wanted to support it as soon as possible,” said O’Riordan. “For a big, distributed GPU project, that was a great turnaround time. Everyone working on cuQuantum helped make the integration as easy as possible,” O’Riordan said.
Quick Summary
Scientists are utilising NVIDIA cuQuantum with Xanadu’s PennyLane software to run quantum computing simulations on supercomputers for the first time, significantly accelerating the process. This advancement allows for larger simulations, potentially leading to breakthroughs in fields such as high-energy physics, machine learning, chemistry, and materials science.
- Scientists are using NVIDIA cuQuantum with Xanadu’s PennyLane to accelerate quantum simulations on supercomputers for the first time.
- Shinjae Yoo, a computational scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, is using the Perlmutter supercomputer at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) for this purpose.
- The Perlmutter supercomputer uses the latest version of PennyLane, a quantum programming framework from Toronto-based Xanadu, to run simulations on high-performance clusters of NVIDIA GPUs.
- Yoo’s work aims to advance high-energy physics and machine learning, while other researchers use quantum simulations for chemistry and materials science.
- Companies like Rolls-Royce and Volkswagen Group are also using quantum simulations to develop state-of-the-art jet engines and more powerful batteries for electric cars.
- At least four other projects at NERSC could produce results on the Perlmutter supercomputer this year using multi-node PennyLane, according to Katherine Klymko, who leads the quantum computing program there.
- PennyLane adapts popular deep learning techniques to programming quantum computers and was designed to run across as many types of quantum computers as possible.
- Lee J. O’Riordan, a senior quantum software developer at Xanadu, said that they hope to scale to 1,000 nodes by the end of the year, which could mean simulating more than 40 qubits.
