2024/06/27 by Catherine C. McGeoch, McGeoch, Catherine C., Kevin Chern +5 · 1 citation
Computer Science · #FOS: Physical sciences #Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2406.19351
openalex publication_date 2024/06/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Recent work [Sachdeva et al.] presented an iterative hybrid quantum variational optimization algorithm designed by Q-CTRL and executed on IBM gate-based quantum processing units (QPUs), claiming a significant performance advantage against a D-Wave quantum annealer. Here we point out major methodological problems with this comparison. Using a simple unoptimized workflow for quantum annealing, we show success probabilities multiple orders of magnitude higher than those reported by [Sachdeva et al.]. These results, which can be reproduced using open-source code and free trial access to a D-Wave quantum annealer, contradict Q-CTRL's claims of superior performance. We also provide a direct comparison between quantum annealing and a recent demonstration of digitized quantum annealing on an IBM processor, showing that analog quantum annealing on a D-Wave QPU reaches far lower energies than digitized quantum annealing on an IBM QPU.