NVIDIA Announces a Specification for Hybrid Quantum-Classical Computing

NVIDIA has announced a specification for hybrid quantum-classical compute architectures. The Quantum Optimized Device Architecture (QODA) will help scientists develop solutions that combine quantum computing with classical computing techniques. According to NVIDIA, “QODA provides a CUDA-like kernel-based programming approach, with a modern C++ focus. You can define quantum device code as standalone function objects or lambdas annotated with __qpu__ to indicate that this is to be compiled to and executed on the quantum device. By relying on function objects over free functions (the CUDA kernel approach), you can enable an efficient approach to building up generic standard quantum library functions that can take any quantum kernel expression as input.”

QODA is compatible with the CUDA, OpenMP, and OpenACC specifications for high-performance computing. For more on QODA and the hybrid quantum-classical computing environment, see the announcement at the NVIDIA website.