Optimal Partitioning of Quantum Circuits Using Gate Cuts and Wire Cuts

A limited number of qubits, high error rates, and limited qubit connectivity are major challenges for effective near-term quantum computations. Quantum circuit partitioning divides a quantum computation into classical postprocessing steps and a set of smaller scale quantum computations that individually require fewer qubits, lower qubit connectivity, and typically incur less error. However, as partitioning generally increases the duration of a quantum computation exponentially in the required partitioning effort, it is crucial to select optimal partitioning points, so-called cuts, and to use optimal cut realizations. In this work, we develop the first optimal partitioning method relying on quantum circuit knitting for optimal cut realizations and an optimal selection of wire cuts and gate cuts that trades off ancilla qubit insertions for a decrease in quantum computing time. Using this combination, the developed method demonstrates a reduction in quantum computing runtime by 41% on average compared to previous quantum circuit partitioning methods. Furthermore, the qubit requirement of the evaluated quantum circuits was reduced by 40% on average for a runtime budget of one hour and a sampling frequency of 1 kHz. These results highlight the optimality gap of previous quantum circuit partitioning methods and the possible extension in the computational reach of near-term quantum computers.