How to test the “quantumness” of a quantum computer?

Abstract

Recent devices, using hundreds of superconducting quantum bits, claim to perform quantum computing. However, it is not an easy task to determine and quantify the degree of quantum coherence and control used by these devices. Namely, it is a difficult task to know with certainty whether or not a given device (e.g., the D-Wave One or D-Wave Two) is a quantum computer. Such a verification of quantum computing would be more accessible if we already had some kind of working quantum computer, to be able to compare the outputs of these various computing devices. Moreover, the verification process itself could strongly depend on whether the tested device is a standard (gate-based) or, e.g., an adiabatic quantum computer. Here we do not propose a technical solution to this quantum-computing “verification problem,” but rather outline the problem in a way which would help both specialists and non-experts to see the scale of this difficult task, and indicate some possible paths toward its solution.