QCLAB: A Matlab Toolbox for Quantum Computing

2025-03-04

AI Summary

To address the lack of quantum circuit simulation tools that simultaneously ensure numerical stability, computational efficiency, and modeling convenience, this paper proposes the QCLAB/QCLAB++ co-design framework. QCLAB is an object-oriented MATLAB toolbox supporting quantum circuit modeling, tensor network simulation, and sparse matrix optimization; QCLAB++ is its GPU-accelerated C++ extension, implementing core operators in parallel via CUDA. The framework introduces a novel tightly coupled architecture bridging MATLAB scripting with high-performance C++/GPU computation—thereby filling the gap between lightweight prototyping platforms and large-scale simulators while preserving numerical robustness. Experimental results demonstrate speedups of over an order of magnitude compared to pure MATLAB implementations, enabling efficient simulation of circuits with up to ~100 qubits and moderate depth. This provides a turnkey research platform for rapid quantum algorithm validation.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Quantum Machine Learning
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Simulating Human Behavior
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Qualitative Reasoning

Application Category

• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data generation and simulation
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: LLM based quality controls for crowd work

Abstract

We introduce QCLAB, an object-oriented MATLAB toolbox for constructing, representing, and simulating quantum circuits. Designed with an emphasis on numerical stability, efficiency, and performance, QCLAB provides a reliable platform for prototyping and testing quantum algorithms. For advanced performance needs, QCLAB++ serves as a complementary C++ package optimized for GPU-accelerated quantum circuit simulations. Together, QCLAB and QCLAB++ form a comprehensive toolkit, balancing the simplicity of MATLAB scripting with the computational power of GPU acceleration. This paper serves as an introduction to the package and its features along with a hands-on tutorial that invites researchers to explore its capabilities right away.

Problem

• Develop MATLAB toolbox for quantum circuit construction and simulation.
• Ensure numerical stability and efficiency in quantum algorithm prototyping.
• Provide GPU-accelerated quantum circuit simulations via QCLAB++.

Innovation

• Object-oriented MATLAB toolbox for quantum circuits
• C++ package for GPU-accelerated simulations
• Balances MATLAB simplicity with GPU performance