Q-score benchmark

Benchmarking results

List of acronyms:
AC: Advanced Compilation method
CE: Constructor Evaluation (checked if the evaluation is done by the chip manufacturer)
EM: Error mitigation
ER: Erdös-Renyi
HS: Hybrid Solver
QA: Quantum Annealer
QC: Quantum Circuit
QCE: Quantm Computer Emulation
SA: Simulated Annealing
SP: Scientific paper (checked if a scientific paper explain the results)
TS: Tabu Search
UD: Unit Disk

Ref Year CE SP Problem Graph class #Instances Shots Time limit Method CPU / QPU Score Comment
[1] 2021/02 x Max-Cut ER G(n, p=1/2) 100 2048 / QCE Grid connectivity Depolarizing noise $$\epsilon_1=0.4 %$$$$\epsilon_2=2 %$$ 11
[1] 2021/02 x Max-Cut ER G(n, p=1/2) 100 2048 / QCE Full connectivity depolarizing noise $$\epsilon_1=0.4 %$$$$\epsilon_2=2 %$$ 21
[2] 2022/08 x Max-Cut ER G(n, p=1/2) 100 60s TS i7-7600u 2300
[2] 2022/08 x Max-Cut ER G(n, p=1/2) 100 60s SA i7-7600u 5800
[2] 2022/08 x Max-Cut ER G(n, p=1/2) 100 60s QA D-Wave 2000Q 70
[2] 2022/08 x Max-Cut ER G(n, p=1/2) 100 60s QA D-Wave Advantage 140
[2] 2022/08 x Max-Cut ER G(n, p=1/2) 100 60s QA D-Wave hybrid solver 12500
[3] 2022/07 x Max-Cut ER G(n, p=1/2) 500 for n=610 to for n=16 1000 / QCE Pasqal Pulser library 18
[3] 2022/07 x MIS UD G(n, p=1/2) 500 for n=610 to for n=16 1000 / QCE Pasqal Pulser library 18
[4] 2023/02 x Max-clique ER G(n, p=1/2) 100 60s TS i7-7600u 4900
[4] 2023/02 x Max-clique ER G(n, p=1/2) 100 60s SA i7-7600u 9100
[4] 2023/02 x Max-clique ER G(n, p=1/2) 100 60s QA D-Wave 2000Q 70
[4] 2023/02 x Max-clique ER G(n, p=1/2) 100 60s QA D-Wave Advantage 110
[4] 2023/02 x Max-clique ER G(n, p=1/2) 100 60s HS D-Wave hybrid solver 12500
[4] 2023/02 x Max-clique ER G(n, p=1/2) 100 60s QC QuTech Starmon-5 5
[4] 2023/02 x Max-clique ER G(n, p=1/2) 100 60s QC IBM Gadalupe 5
[5] 2023/10 x Max-Cut ER G(n, p=1/2) 100 / QC IQM-20 8
[6] 2024/02 x x Max-Cut ER G(n, p=1/2) 100 2048 / QC IQM Spark 6
[7] 2024/02 x Max-Cut ER G(n, p=1/2) 100 2048 / QC IQM-20 11
[8] 2024 x Max-Cut / / QC Quandela Altaïr 6 EM & AC

Motivation

The Q-score protocol, introduced by S. Martiel et al. in 2021 [1] aims to establish an application-centric, hardware agnostic, and scalable figure of merit for assessing the performance of quantum computers. A key motivation behind this protocol is to identify challenging real-world optimization problems whose solution processes could be accelerated through quantum computing.

Protocol

The Q-score protocol measures the maximum size of Maxcut instances that can be solved effectively on a quantum computer. The main idea is to pick a class of random graphs (e.g., Erdös-Renyi graphs with \(n\) nodes and a specific edge probability) and to analytically derive the maximum cut size \(C_{max}(n)\) and average random cut size \(C_{rand}(n)\) for this class. The average expectation value obtained from the sampling of the quantum computer \(C^Q(n)\) is used to compute the ratio \(\beta(n)\):

\[\beta(n) = \frac{C^Q(n) - C_{rand}(n)}{C_{max}(n) - C_{rand}(n)}\]

The quantum computer passes the Q-score for instances of size \(n\) if \(\beta(n) > \beta^*\) (\(\beta^* \in ]0,1[\)), where \(\beta^*\) represents the level of difficulty of the test. The formula used to compute the ratio depends on the class of studied graphs. For their experiments, the authors arbitrarily set \(\beta^*=0.2\).

The final value of the score is defined by:

\[n^* = \max \{ n \in \mathbb{N}, \beta(n) > \beta^* \}\]

This score can be extended to other problems, it only depends on the ability of finding derivation of the values \(C_{max}(n)\) and \(C_{rand}(n)\).

Assumptions

Configuration of experiments

Extensions to the Q-score

Max-clique extension

In [4], the authors extend the Q-Score to the Max-clique problem. For Erdös-Renyi graphs \(G(n, p)\), the average random cost \(C_{rand}(n)\) is set to (proof in [4]):

\[C_{rand}(n) = \sum_{i=1}^n i \times (1-p^i)p^{i(i-1)/2}\]

For this kind of problem, \(C_{max}\) is set to (proof in [9]):

\[C_{max}(n) = 2 \log_2(n) - 2 \log_2(\log_2(n)) + 2 \log_2\left(\frac{e}{2}\right) +1\]

Empirical optimal and random average cost

In [3], the authors propose determining \(C_{max}(n)\) for arbitrary problems using exact methods, thereby circumventing the need to derive theoretical bounds for both \(C_{max}\) and \(C_{rand}\). While this approach expands the range of problems to which the Q-score can be applied, it does so at the cost of reduced scalability.

References

  1. [1]S. Martiel, T. Ayral, and C. Allouche, “Benchmarking quantum coprocessors in an application-centric, hardware-agnostic, and scalable way,” IEEE Transactions on Quantum Engineering, vol. 2, pp. 1–11, 2021.
  2. [2]W. van der Schoot, D. Leermakers, R. Wezeman, N. Neumann, and F. Phillipson, “Evaluating the Q-score of Quantum Annealers,” in 2022 IEEE International Conference on Quantum Software (QSW), 2022, pp. 9–16.
  3. [3]W. da S. Coelho, M. D’Arcangelo, and L.-P. Henry, “Efficient protocol for solving combinatorial graph problems on neutral-atom quantum processors,” arXiv preprint arXiv:2207.13030, 2022.
  4. [4]W. van der Schoot, R. Wezeman, N. M. P. Neumann, F. Phillipson, and R. Kooij, “Q-score Max-Clique: The First Quantum Metric Evaluation on Multiple Computational Paradigms,” arXiv preprint arXiv:2302.00639, 2023.
  5. [5]IQM, “Finland launches a 20-qubit quantum computer - development towards more powerful quantum computers continues.” 2023 [Online]. Available at: https://www.meetiqm.com/newsroom/press-releases/finland-launches-a-20-qubit-quantum-computer
  6. [6]J. Rönkkö et al., “On-premises superconducting quantum computer for education and research,” EPJ Quantum Technology, vol. 11, no. 1, p. 32, 2024.
  7. [7]IQM, “IQM quantum computers achieves a new benchmark result on 20-qubit quantum computer.” 2024 [Online]. Available at: https://www.meetiqm.com/newsroom/press-releases/iqm-achieves-20-qubit-benchmark-result
  8. [8]Quandela, “Introducing Quandela cloud 2.0.” 2024 [Online]. Available at: https://www.quandela.com/cloud/
  9. [9]D. W. Matula, The largest clique size in a random graph. Department of Computer Science, Southern Methodist University Dallas, Texas …, 1976.