ColibriTD accelerates algorithm development with Quantum as a Service

Unleashing quantum’s potential

The quantum revolution is poised to reshape industries, from drug discovery and materials science to financial simulations and climate modeling.

But the technology is too expensive and complicated for mainstream adoption. If you can get the hardware, you’ll need specialized facilities and hard-to-find skills to actually use it.

Those barriers to adoption block most people from accessing quantum computing. ColibriTD, for example, is a startup with a small team, so it needs operational efficiency and best-in-class tooling to accomplish its goals. A DIY approach to quantum computing just wouldn’t work.

Harnessing quantum emulation in the cloud

When ColibriTD needed to tune its own algorithm to work with noisy quantum computers, it opted for quantum emulation to simulate the noise models. It selected the Qaptiva development environment to run the noise models on a high number of qubits to get as close as possible to testing on real hardware before running on real hardware. This approach accelerates development.

Thanks to the OVHcloud-hosted Qaptiva solution, ColibrITD explored the influence of quantum entanglement in their algorithm.

Dr. Laurent Guiraud | Co-founder of ColibriTD

Going as a service

Qaptiva is a user-friendly quantum development environment that supports various programming paradigms including gate-based, annealing and analog. Subscribing to it as a service allows ColibriTD to focus on developing new quantum-enhanced applications and algorithms without being limited by the availability, capacity and cost restrictions of quantum computing.

To access Qaptiva, ColibrITD subscribed to OVHcloud, a European cloud services provider hosting a Qaptiva 800 appliance onsite to emulate up to 41 logical qubits. As a result, ColibrITD now has streamlined and centralized access to the power of this programming environment seven days a week.

Factoring efficiency in

Qaptiva emulation on OVHcloud enhances ColibrITD’s productivity and cost management by simplifying setup and management of quantum infrastructure.

Without that burden, developers are better able to concentrate on their core research and development activities, which are also more efficient now. Dr. Laurent Guiraud, co-founder of ColibriTD, saw the difference immediately.

Running on real hardware to develop our algorithm can take days or weeks due to hardware availability and queuing systems. Being able to test in a few minutes or hours on Qaptiva drastically reduces the development process by at least a factor of 10, said Guiraud.

Circling back to the mission

Moreover, the pay-as-you-go cloud computing model offers better cost control, making quantum experimentation and development more attainable for organizations of all sizes — and perfectly aligning ColibriTD’s operations with its mission. Quantum for everyone!