Fujitsu: 36-qubit quantum simulator
Fujitsu has announced the development of the " Fujitsu Supercomputer PRIMEHPC FX 700 ", the world's fastest quantum computer simulator capable of running 36-qubit quantum circuits in a cluster system (PRIMEHPC FX 700). It features the same A64FX CPU that drives the world's fastest supercomputer, Fugaku, with a theoretical peak performance of 3,072 TFLOPs, as well as 32 GB of HBM2 memory incorporated in the same device.
The new quantum simulator can execute "Qulacs" quantum simulator software in parallel at high speeds, outperforming previous leading quantum simulators in 36-qubit quantum processes by nearly twice as much.
Fujitsu's new quantum simulator will serve as a springboard for the development of quantum computing applications, which are expected to be implemented in the coming years.
Fujitsu's efforts to create quantum computers will be accelerated in the future, with the objective of developing a 40-qubit simulator by September 2022 and performing joint research and development of quantum applications with clients in industries such as finance and the discovery of medicines.
"We are on the cusp of a new age in computing technology. Fujitsu has successfully constructed the world's fastest quantum simulator by leveraging its decades of knowledge in computer technologies. We recently used this expertise in collaboration with RIKEN to construct the Fugaku supercomputer, which has been the fastest in the world for the last two years.
In the future, we hope to use this new quantum simulator to help our customers accelerate the development of quantum applications and, ultimately, contribute to a more sustainable world by addressing a variety of societal issues "said Vivek Mahajan, Corporate CEO and Chief Technology Officer at Fujitsu Limited.
The PRIMEHPC FX 700 is powered by the same A64FX CPU as the Fugaku supercomputer and has a theoretical maximum performance of 3,072 teraflops (TFLOPS) in double-precision floating-point format calculations. It also features 32 GB of memory, high bandwidth of 1,024 gigabytes (GB) per second, and rates of 12.5 GB per second when connecting nodes through InfiniBand.
The new quantum simulator employs "Qulacs," one of the world's fastest quantum simulation programs developed by Osaka University and QunaSys Corporation, and memory bandwidth performance was improved by running many calculations concurrently utilizing SVE instructions. When transferred to the A64FX, it was known as SVE (Scalable Vector Extension).
The MPI (Message Passing Interface) permits parallel and distributed Qulacs execution and data transfer that maximizes network bandwidth by overlapping calculations and communication. Fujitsu has also created a new approach for efficiently reordering the states of qubits deployed in cluster distributed memory based on the progress of the quantum circuit and its processing, which helps cut communication costs. Aside from "Qulacs," the new technology is also compatible with other quantum simulation tools.
Qiskit, one of the foremost quantum software development tools, is now available for Fujitsu's quantum simulator, providing quantum software developers with a very convenient working environment.
Fujitsu wants to include the company's Qamuy quantum chemical calculation software in the new quantum simulator, in conjunction with QunaSys, to provide the resources required to execute a wide range of high-speed quantum chemical computations.
