SEQUOIA
Harnessing the potential of quantum computing
Goals
The joint research project SEQUOIA stands for »Software Engineering of Industrial Hybrid Quantum Applications and Algorithms«. Based on concrete use cases from the production and development, logistics and mobility, engineering, automotive, energy, finance and insurance, telecommunications and real estate industries, the SEQUOIA project aimed to research, develop and test new methods, tools and approaches for quantum computing in industrial applications.
Approach
The core of the research project was the implementation and demonstration of industrial use cases on the IBM Quantum System One in Ehningen, the first commercially usable gate-based quantum computer in Europe. For this purpose, an application center consisting of 28 companies was established, whose use cases were collected, evaluated and classified. Subsequently, these use cases were evaluated according to economic and scientific criteria and six so-called »focus use cases« were defined in close exchange with the company advisory board, which - as an essential project goal - were implemented, tested or simulated by means of hybrid quantum algorithms and demonstrated on the IBM Quantum System One in Ehningen.
Outcomes
The developed algorithms, tools and methods have been continuously incorporated into the SEQUOIA software component toolbox to enable conventional developers to construct high-level quantum solutions and to enable experts to construct and execute quantum solutions for industrial use cases faster and more efficiently. Those toolings have been made open source via corresponding Git-hub repositories. The developed hybrid solutions of the focus use cases as well as further application-centered quantum algorithms are made available to the general public as self-explanatory, interactive Jupyter notebooks in the »Competence Center Quantum Computing Baden-Württemberg« (KQCBW) via the computing infrastructure of Fraunhofer IAO.
As a central result of the joint research project »SEQUOIA«, Fraunhofer IAO and other research partners have published the study »Quantum Computing in Industrial Applications«. It offers a far-reaching overview and shows current hardware and software implementations including the most common algorithms and industrial case studies. The aim is to enable companies and developers to use quantum software in a targeted manner. The study is published only in German and can be downloaded free of charge at the following link:
