Evaluating System-Level Fidelity with Peaked Random Circuits
2026-05-25 • Emerging Technologies
Emerging Technologies
AI summaryⓘ
The authors discuss a method called Peaked Random Circuits (PRCs) to measure how well different quantum computers perform. Instead of focusing on one type of quantum computer, they use PRCs to test various devices by seeing if the machines can spot a special output in noisy conditions. They tested this method on two types of quantum hardware and found that PRCs give a precise way to compare systems, similar to existing tests but more sensitive to certain errors. This helps in reliably checking quantum computers as they move toward wider use.
Quantum computingPeaked Random Circuits (PRCs)NISQ devicesQuantum VolumeFidelity benchmarkSuperconducting qubitsTrapped-ion qubitsCircuit depthGate errorsQuantum hardware benchmarking
Authors
Martin Brieger, Florian Krötz, Minh Chung, Dieter Kranzlmüller
Abstract
Quantum computing is transitioning from experimental prototypes to commercially available turnkey systems, making architecture-agnostic performance metrics essential for cross-platform comparison. Peaked Random Circuits (PRCs) have recently been proposed as a viable path to demonstrate quantum advantage on NISQ devices: a quantum processor can reliably detect a single, peaked output state amid background noise, yet the circuits' characteristics render classical simulation infeasible. In this paper, we repurpose PRCs as a system-level fidelity benchmark. By successively running a matrix of PRCs with varying qubit counts and circuit depths, we quantify a system's ability to identify the deterministic peak despite cumulative noise, gate errors, and connectivity constraints. We apply the benchmark on IQM's superconducting and AQT's trapped-ion architectures. Our results show that PRCs provide a high-precision metric comparable to Quantum Volume while exhibiting greater sensitivity to interference effects. Consequently, PRCs enable a robust framework for assessing the computational reliability of NISQ hardware across platforms.