A Web-based Software Development Kit for Quantum Network Simulation

Abstract: Quantum network simulation is an essential step towards developing applications for quantum networks and determining minimal requirements for the network hardware. As it is with classical networking, a simulation ecosystem allows for application development, standardization, and overall community building. Currently, there is limited traction towards building a quantum networking community-there are limited open-source platforms, challenging frameworks with steep learning curves, and strong requirements of software engineering skills. Our Quantum Network Development Kit (QNDK) project aims to solve these issues. It includes a graphical user interface to easily develop and run quantum network simulations with very little code. It integrates various quantum network simulation engines and provides a single interface to them, allowing users to use the features from any of them. Further, it deploys simulation execution in a cloud environment, offloading strong computing requirements to a high-performance computing system. In this paper, we detail the core features of the QNDK and outline the development roadmap to enabling virtual quantum testbeds.