Exact and approximate simulation of large quantum circuits on a single GPU

We benchmark the performances of Qrack, an open-source software library for the high-performance classical simulation of (gate-model) quantum computers. Qrack simulates, in the Schrödinger picture, the exact quantum state of n qubits evolving under the application of a circuit composed of elementary quantum gates. Moreover, Qrack can also run approximate simulations in which a tunable reduction of the quantum state fidelity is traded for a significant reduction of the execution time and memory footprint. In this work, we give an overview of both simulation methods (exact and approximate), highlighting the main physics-based and software-based techniques. Moreover, we run computationally heavy benchmarks on a single GPU, executing large quantum Fourier transform circuits and large random circuits. Compared with other classical simulators, we report competitive execution times for the exact simulation of Fourier transform circuits with up to 27 qubits. We also demonstrate the approximate simulation of all amplitudes of random circuits acting on 54 qubits with 7 layers at average fidelity higher than 4%, a task commonly considered hard without super-computing resources.