Software Stack Requirements for Quantum Computer Testbeds

Quantum testbed systems are a new domain where quantum computing systems are being deployed. Testbed systems, by the nature of their intended usage scenario, introduce new demands on the software stack. We have identified several key requirements for testbed systems that differ from small-scale, lab-based quantum computers. These include: larger quantities of data, multi-user access, higher uptime, better resource utilization, user role specialization, user interaction, well-defined APIs, and integration with HPC systems. These requirements are ill-served by the existing software stacks that have been developed for quantum computing systems thus far. The challenges of operating quantum computer systems at this new level of scale mirrors those experienced (and solved) in other emerging domains such as ML Ops (operating Machine Learning systems end-to-end). In this talk we will present the emerging challenges we foresee and the software solutions required to continue to push the bounds of the experiments and workloads that an experimentalist can run on quantum computers.