A practical architecture for reliable quantum computers

Quantum computation has advanced to the point where system-level solutions can help close the gap between emerging quantum technologies and real-world computing requirements. Empirical studies of practical quantum architectures are just beginning to appear in the literature. Elementary architectural concepts are still lacking: How do we provide quantum storage, data paths, classical control circuits, parallelism, and system integration? And, crucially, how can we design architectures to reduce error-correction overhead? The authors describe a proposed architecture that uses code teleportation, quantum memory refresh units, dynamic compilation of quantum programs, and scalable error correction to achieve system-level efficiencies. They assert that their work indicates the underlying technology's reliability is crucial; practical architectures will require quantum technologies with error rates between 10/sup -6/ and 10/sup -9/.