Quantum computer programming made easier

A team of four computer scientists working at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) has made a vital breakthrough. They have developed the first intuitive programming language for quantum computers in the form of Silq. To facilitate discussion and further development, Silq has been published on its own website. On Thursday, Martin Vechev, Computer Science Professor at the Secure, Reliable and Intelligent Systems Lab (SRI) at ETH, will present Silq to a group of experts attending the programming language conference PLDI 2020.

Computer scientists refer to computer languages that abstract from the technical details of the specific type of computer as high-​level programming languages. For quantum computers, Silq represents the first ever high-level programming language.

“Silq allows programmers to utilize the potential of quantum computers better than with existing languages”, comments Vechev in a press release. This is because Silq “is the first quantum programming language that is not designed primarily around the construction and functionality of the hardware, but on the mindset of the programmers when they want to solve a problem – without requiring them to understand every detail of the computer architecture and implementation”, explains Benjamin Bichsel, a doctoral student in Vechev’s group.

The most important innovation and simplification relates to what is known as “uncomputation”. This is a form of automatic garbage collection. In conventional PCs, intermediate steps in connection with a calculating a task are deleted automatically. However, for quantum computers, this removal process is not quite so simple due something called quantum entanglement. Silq is the first quantum programming language that automatically identifies and erases intermediate values that are no longer needed.

However, Silq is not the final development step on the way to optimal programming of quantum computers. “Our team of four has made the breakthrough after two years of work thanks to the combination of different expertise in language design, quantum physics and implementation. If other research and development teams embrace our innovations, it will be a great success”, Bichsel elaborates in the press release.