Quantum Hardware Is Ready for HPC, but Software Is Not, Alice & Bob Say
HPCwire, Wednesday, September 9th, 2026
An Alice & Bob report by Hyperion Research finds qubits are nearly ready but the HPC software stack around them is not.
Alice & Bob's second "Seizing Quantum's Edge" report, produced by Hyperion Research from interviews at Argonne, NERSC, Oak Ridge, RIKEN and others, says the HPC software stack is lagging behind quantum hardware.
Compilers, schedulers and monitors needed to run quantum systems next to supercomputers remain immature, with one lab lead calling the current setup "duct taped." Fault-tolerant computing may need 1,000 physical qubits per logical qubit and decoders handling terabit-scale syndrome data.
The report calls for better QC-HPC interfaces such as QDMI and QRMI, cautions against standardizing too early, and stresses co-design for real applications.