One nine availability of a Photonic Quantum Computer on the Cloud toward HPC integration

Abstract: The integration of Quantum Computers (QC) within High-Performance Computing (HPC) environments holds significant promise for solving real-world problems by leveraging the strengths of both computational paradigms. However, the integration of a complex QC platform in an HPC infrastructure poses several challenges, such as operation stability in non-laboratory like environments, and scarce access for maintenance. Currently, only a few fully-assembled QCs currently exist worldwide, employing highly heterogeneous and cutting-edge technologies. These platforms are mostly used for research purposes, and often bear closer resemblance to laboratory assemblies rather than production-ready, stable, and consistently-performing turnkey machines. Moreover, public cloud services with access to such quantum computers are scarce and their availability is generally limited to few days per week. In November 2022, we introduced the first cloud-accessible general-purpose quantum computer based on single photons. One of the key objectives was to maintain the platform's availability as high as possible while anticipating seamless compatibility with HPC hosting environment. In this article, we describe the design and implementation of our cloud-accessible quantum computing platform, and demonstrate one nine availability (92 %) for external users during a six-month period, higher than most online services. This work lay the foundation for advancing quantum computing accessibility and usability in hybrid HPC-QC infrastructures.