RIKEN Adopts QunaSys Software for Fugaku Quantum-HPC Project

RIKEN, a Japanese research institute, has integrated QunaSys’s QURI SDK Enterprise into its JHPC-quantum project. This project connects the Fugaku supercomputer with an IBM Quantum System Two and a Quantinuum trapped-ion system. The software enables users to execute hybrid workflows from Fugaku’s compute nodes across these two quantum machines. The information came out via a QunaSys press release on September 4.

Details of the Adoption

The JHPC-quantum project is sponsored by NEDO, under Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. It establishes a link between Fugaku and the IBM Quantum System Two “ibm_kobe” located at RIKEN’s Center for Computational Science in Kobe, and the Quantinuum System Model H2 machine “Reimei” at RIKEN’s Wako campus. QURI SDK Enterprise provides JHPC-quantum users with access to these quantum devices from Fugaku’s compute and pre/post-processing nodes.

The SDK includes QunaSys’s proprietary hybrid algorithms, such as QSCI and ADAPT-QSCI. QunaSys has identified quantum chemistry, materials science, and computer-aided engineering as target applications, and noted these are “with a view to future practical applications.” 

For classical computing, the software supports Fugaku and the GPU cluster “ROQUO,” which utilizes NVIDIA GB200 NVL4 hardware. Circuit simulations perform with distributed parallelism, using mpiQulacs on Fugaku and a cuQuantum backend on ROQUO. These simulators model quantum circuits on classical hardware; a simulated circuit does not represent a measured result from a quantum processor.

Undisclosed Information

The press release does not specify the qubit counts for the IBM or Quantinuum machines involved in the project. Furthermore, it lacks any benchmarks demonstrating that the hybrid setup outperforms classical methods. QunaSys claims QSCI is “one of the most widely used approaches to quantum-HPC hybrid computing worldwide” without providing a source for this assertion. There is no mention of error rates, runtime figures, or completed research outputs.

Tennin Yan, CEO of QunaSys, presented this deployment as an initial step:

“We see this deployment as an opportunity to deepen our collaboration with RIKEN and further accelerate the research and development of quantum-HPC hybrid applications.”

QunaSys, a Tokyo-based company with 11 to 50 employees, develops and maintains the Qulacs simulator. Its primary focus is on quantum algorithms and software for chemistry and healthcare. The company intends to expand device and HPC support “step by step,” and indicates that utility-scale hybrid computing is a future goal.