Architecting a reliable quantum operating system: microkernel, message passing and supercomputing

Abstract: A quantum operating system (QCOS) is a classic software running on classic hardware. The QCOS is preparing, starting, controlling and managing quantum computations. The reliable execution of fault-tolerant quantum computations will require the QCOS to be as reliable and fault-tolerant as the computation itself. In the following, we discuss why a QCOS should be architected according to the following principles: 1) using a microkernel; 2) the components are working in an aggregated, non-stacked manner and communicate by message passing; 3) the components are executed by default on supercomputers, unless there are very good reasons not to. These principles can guarantee that the execution of error-corrected, fault-tolerant quantum computation is not vulnerable to the failures of the QCOS.