Closing the Gap Between Quantum Algorithms and Hardware through Software-Enabled Vertical Integration and Co-Design*

Quantum computing is at an inflection point, where 50-qubit (quantum bit) machines
have been built, 100-qubit machines are just around the corner, and even 1000-qubit
machines are perhaps only a few years away. These machines have the potential
to fundamentally change our concept of what is computable and demonstrate
practical applications in areas such as quantum chemistry, optimization, and
quantum simulation.

Yet a significant resource gap remains between practical quantum algorithms and near-term
machines. Programming, compilation and control will play a key role in increasing the efficiency
of algorithms and machines to close this gap.

I will outline the grand research challenges in closing this gap, including
programming language design, software and hardware verification, defining
and perforating abstraction boundaries, cross-layer optimization, managing parallelism
and communication, mapping and scheduling computations, reducing control complexity,
machine-specific optimizations, and many more. I will also describe the resources
and infrastructure available for tackling these challenges.