UC Santa Barbara computer science assistant professor Murphy Yuezhen Niu has received a prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award to pioneer a paradigm shift in quantum computer engineering. The five-year, $630,000 award funds her project, "Quantum Pulse Processing-Robust and Programmable Quantum Control for Near-Term Quantum Simulation," which aims to  reshape how we build, control, and program the quantum machines of the future.

Niu’s research confronts a central challenge, which is that current quantum computers operate in a noisy, error-prone “intermediate scale” (about 100-100,000 qubits). While those machines are typically programmed using discrete digital "gates," the underlying physical operations rely on continuous, analog control pulses. 

Gate-based quantum computing requires significant overhead in terms of the number of extra qubits required to scale up digital error correction. In contrast, computing paradigms such as analog simulation, reservoir computing, and quantum neural networks achieve robustness without error correction, enabling faster scaling toward systems having tens of thousands of qubits in the near future. In her NSF CAREER project, Niu is exploring novel hybrid quantum-computing paradigms beyond the traditional gate model, in which the analog nature of quantum dynamics is combined with the programmability of digital approaches. The goal of developing new quantum-control techniques and quantum-algorithm frameworks based on quantum signal processing is to enhance robustness and error resilience of large-scale quantum computation without relying on the overhead of conventional digital error correction.

Niu proposes a transformative approach. "We are leveraging advancements in the emerging area of quantum signal processing to introduce a new paradigm, called quantum pulse processing, to bridge the gap between existing gate-based approaches and purely analog approaches to quantum computing," Niu wrote in her proposal.

Niu’s hybrid method aims to harness the best of both worlds: the structured programmability familiar from digital gate sequences, integrated deeply with the flexibility and efficiency offered by direct, continuous pulse-level control. “The goal is to engineer quantum dynamics having both enhanced flexibility and robustness against errors, without sacrificing the crucial element of programmability required for complex algorithms,” she says.

This proposal is built upon Niu's unique full-stack research experience in both academia and industry, covering the entire spectrum of quantum-computing research, from foundational physics to practical application.

By developing sophisticated multi-qubit control optimization protocols, hybrid digital-analog algorithms, and scalable system characterization methods, the project holds the promise of significantly enhancing the performance of near-term quantum computers, thereby accelerating the timeline for achieving a practical quantum advantage in fields such as materials science and drug discovery.

In her CAREER award project, Niu will also support her commitment to building a strong quantum workforce by developing open-source tools, new interdisciplinary courses, undergraduate research programs, K-12 outreach, and a free online textbook dedicated to quantum control.