CanSofCom Challenge

We present to you a quantum computing error correction implementation of Pauli Sandwiches, as well as a Variational Classifier to tackle challenges set out by CanSofCom for HTN 2022.

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Inspiration

2022 CanSofCom challenged was super interesting, and we wanted to take a crack at ~ quantum ~ computing.

What it does

Task #1 is designed to use a Pauli-Sandwich to reduce error on a set of Quantum gates.

Task #2 is designed to use quantum properties to create a Variational Classifier.

How we built it

We built off of the existing API's from Zapata and Xanadu, using Python3 to bring together different resources and tackle the challenges.

Challenges we ran into

Overall, if there was one thing that we would take away from this hackathon, is that versioning and requirement installations in Python need better control. We spent over 12 hours JUST installing different versions of python, trying to find versions and dependencies that would work with the API's provided by Zapata and Xanadu. In the end, even with the help of team members from Zapata and Xanadu, only one machine had the ability to run the Zapata API.... at which point we gave up and decided to start hacking.

We also probably could have done better with a bit of a quantum background, understanding the difference between a Gate, a ControlledGate, etc. etc. took a large part of our remaining time. This is to be expected, but when tackling an API with little documentation and few examples, it became painstakingly slow to trail & error different combinations of function calls to achieve what we needed to d.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Although we may not have presented the best solution, we're really proud that we learned so much more about Quantum computing, and the fact that we managed to keep our heads up and keep trying even when everything was breaking.

What we learned

We learned a lot about preparing, about explaining ourselves clearly, but also about the cool world of Quantum computing and how relatively easily accessible it is.

We'd also like to give a huge shoutout to Boniface Yogendran (Yogi) for giving us a great intro into quantum mechanics, and also for helping us debug for hours on end.

What's next for CanSofCom Challenge

Although we didn't manage to accomplish as much as we wanted to this Hackathon, we're super excited to continue to work on this project and we hope to continue to be active with quantum computing API's, learning more about what they can do, what we can do, and hopefully contributing to features and bug lists; just like we did at Hack The North 2022!

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