English

Resource Estimation for Fault-Tolerant Quantum Programs

Quantum Physics 2026-08-05 v1 Programming Languages

Abstract

Fault-tolerant quantum computation enables the deployment of practical quantum algorithms but incurs substantial overhead from error correction, making resource estimation a central concern. Beyond case-by-case analyses, existing quantum programming languages either require programmers to manipulate low-level hardware details, rendering fault-tolerant implementations cumbersome, or abstract away the underlying error-correction schemes, reducing the effectiveness of resource utilization and estimation. To address these limitations while preserving programmability, we present a quantum programming language that enables efficient resource utilization, together with a resource-estimation framework for comprehensive resource analysis. Our framework features programmer-visible abstractions of error-correction schemes and cross-layer program-hardware analysis, allowing systematic exploration of resource trade-offs. We evaluate our approach on detailed fault-tolerant implementations of practical large-scale quantum algorithms, including components typically treated as black boxes in existing frameworks. The results demonstrate that our framework enables substantial resource savings while delivering detailed, fine-grained, and accurate resource estimates for fault-tolerant quantum programs.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2608.04573,
  title  = {Resource Estimation for Fault-Tolerant Quantum Programs},
  author = {Bonan Su and Yuan Feng and Li Zhou and Mingsheng Ying},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2608.04573},
  year   = {2026}
}