Reliable Quantum Operations Per Second (rQOPS)

This protocol was introduced by Microsoft in 2023 by C. Nayak [1].

Motivation

Microsoft introduced the reliable Quantum Operations Per Second (rQOPS) figure of merit to evaluate the performance of large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers. The principal motivation behind this figure of merit is quantifying the number of reliable logical operations a quantum computer can perform per second.

Protocol details

The number of rQOPS is defined by the product of the number of logical qubits \(n\) and the logical clock frequency \(f\):

The author specifies that the logical error rate should be reported along with the value of the \(rQOPS\).

Limitations

While the rQOPS metric provides a useful high-level indicator of performance, it is subject to several limitations arising from a lack of specification:

• The protocols used to measure the logical error rate and the logical clock frequency are not specified.
• The number of logical qubits \(n\) is not fixed. As a result, the \(rQOPS\) value may not accurately reflect performance at scale. For instance, the rQOPS derived from a small subset of logical qubits may not extrapolate to the full system, especially if clock frequency degrades with increasing system size due to routing or control overheads.

Implementation

There is currently no referenced implementation of this protocol.

References

1. [1]C. Nayak, “Microsoft achieves first milestone towards a quantum supercomputer.” 2023 [Online]. Available at: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/quantum/2023/06/21/microsoft-achieves-first-milestone-towards-a-quantum-supercomputer/