US scientists simulate advanced quantum chip using nearly 7,000 GPUs

A team of researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley, has successfully simulated a next-generation quantum microchip using nearly 7,200 NVIDIA GPUs on the Perlmutter supercomputer at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center. This full-scale physical simulation, conducted over 24 hours, represents a significant advancement in quantum hardware design by enabling scientists to predict chip performance, identify potential issues, and reduce errors before fabrication. The simulation utilized the exascale modeling tool ARTEMIS to capture detailed electromagnetic wave propagation and interactions within the chip, which measures just 10 millimeters square and 0.3 millimeters thick with micron-scale features. The simulation was unprecedented in scale and complexity, discretizing the chip into 11 billion grid cells and running over a million time steps in seven hours, allowing testing of multiple circuit configurations daily. Unlike typical simulations, this approach modeled the chip’s material composition, wiring, resonator geometry, and electromagnetic interactions in full-wave physical detail, including