Nvidia researchers conducted a large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computing simulation at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre in Germany. The project utilized the JUPITER supercomputer, which is powered by 8,192 Nvidia GH200 Grace Hopper superchips.
The simulation successfully modeled 104 logical qubits, marking the largest comprehensive simulation of a fault-tolerant quantum system to date. By employing a technique known as Magic State Cultivation, researchers reduced the physical qubit requirement by 90% compared to traditional distillation protocols.
This approach allows for the exploration of noise impacts on quantum systems, enabling hardware design optimization before physical construction. Nvidia stated that this methodology could accelerate the development of practical quantum computers by several years, with applications in drug discovery, financial modeling, and materials science.
The simulation process involved scaling the method from a few GPUs on GB200 NVL72 systems to 8,192 GPUs on JUPITER, reducing the computation time from weeks to days. The team utilized the cuQuantum library and the CUDA-Q platform to manage the fault-tolerant logic layers.
JUPITER is Europe's first exascale supercomputer, featuring 24,000 GH200 chips and capable of 1 ExaFLOP/s. The project is funded by the EuroHPC JU, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, and the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia.
