Building intermediate-scale quantum control systems in a star network architecture

The advance of quantum information technology is raising new system engineering challenges in both the quantum and the classical regimes: In the coming years, quantum processors containing 50–500 physical qubits will be more regularly implemented by academic and industrial laboratories for state-of-the-art quantum computation and quantum simulation algorithms. In the meantime, electronics and computer control systems should be capable of supporting experimental progress in a scalable architecture. In this talk, we will present a Quantum Computing Control System (QCCS) solution that can synchronize and feedback-control up to 448 high-fidelity physical channels at microwave frequencies. In this system, modular qubit control units are arranged in a star network to achieve uniform intercommunication latencies and synchronization stabilities. We will emphasize on key features of this system, such as calibration-free microwave frontends, experiment pipelining, and custom FPGA programming of the Quantum System Hub (QHub), and explain its unique advantages in accelerating quantum optimal control and quantum error correction with intermediate-scale quantum information processors.