Distributed Quantum Computing Architecture Utilizing Entangled Ion Qubit Shuttling

Scalability remains a significant challenge in quantum computing (QC), crucial for achieving fault-tolerant QC. In the trapped-ion platform, scaling approaches such as quantum charge-coupled device (QCCD) and photonic interconnect were proposed and their proof-of-concept experiments were demonstrated. In this presentation, we introduce another scaling approach, the shuttling-based distributed quantum computing (SDQC) architecture, which integrates shuttling and distributed quantum computing.SDQC comprises multiple ion chains with fixed data qubits where interchain entangling gates are mediated by entangled communication qubits transported by ion shuttling. Such architectures enable asynchronous operations between data qubit manipulation and shuttling of entangled qubits. We assessed the performance of SDQC in terms of the time cost and effective error of remote gates, comparing the result with other scaling approaches. The time cost is evaluated for operation run time and entanglement distribution time, while number of operations, shuttling loss, and coherence time were considered to estimate the effective error. Feasibility of hybrid architecture with photonic interconnect and prospects on large-scale systems are discussed as well.