Summary

In this chapter, we explored the challenges that working on real hardware may pose. Depending on the specific nature of the hardware, regardless of whether it is purpose-specific, as in the case of quantum annealers, or one of the many implementations of digital quantum computers, these concepts are still hard to omit.

Being aware that the mapping for a given problem is being done at a hardware level, paying attention to which qubits are used, their associated error, and how this will be reflected in the outcome, you can implement countermeasures so that the results still offer enough resolution. That way, the advantage that’s expected from quantum computation can still be significant.

By understanding the different challenges and how they may affect a given problem setup, you can choose the appropriate hardware that can better accommodate the problem.

Annealers can be used for large problems but not as large as you might think in terms of embedding restrictions...