The Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Atom Computing have developed an open-source application that can reportedly serve as an interface between quantum computers and power grid equipment and enable researchers to conduct “quantum-in-the-loop” experiments.
A team of researchers demonstrated the app using Atom Computing’s quantum computing solution stack and real-time grid simulators from RTDS Technologies and were able to integrate a quantum computing system with an electric grid research platform, NREL said Monday.
“To assess the security of next-generation communication protocols and validate current and future quantum algorithms, it is critical to establish a real-world emulation environment with actual hardware and high-speed communication,” said Rob Hovsapian, a research adviser at NREL’s Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems.
“This is precisely what we have developed at ARIES with quantum in-the-loop,” added Hovsapian.
The interface works by simplifying the translation of optimization problems into quantum variables and facilitating communications between power system simulations and quantum computers.
The research team expects the software interface to help scientists determine problems that could be addressed by quantum computers and assess them through live experiments.
