Energy efficient quantum computers

As quantum technologies drive strong expectations from governments and industries, most attention has so far been given to physical resource costs especially as they pertain to large-scale quantum processors. Consequently, little attention has been paid to the study of the energy costs associated with quantum computing. It is in our best interest to study the energy savings for the contained environmental footprint of quantum computers as their commercial capabilities become stronger.

Support for the initiatives laid out in the QEI Manifesto

• Define energy-based metrics for all quantum technologies; provide methodologies to measure them and establish benchmarks.
• Derive fundamental bounds for energy consumption; draw out roadmaps and design practical and basic scenarios to minimize the energy costs of quantum processes.
• Use energetic efficiencies as optimization tools to operate smart technological choices as quantum devices are being built, to anticipate and avoid dead-ends of energetic nature.
• Understand the impact of hardware, software as well as quantum and classical control on the energy consumption of real quantum devices.
• Define and provide the conditions of an energetic advantage of quantum nature, where useful quantum devices consume less energy than their classical counterparts.

Initial data

Fellous-Asiani et al. propose an approach to estimate energy cost to crack RSA on superconducting quantum computers. For cracking RSA 2048, the energy cost would involve power consumption of about 7MW over 1.5 hours.