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Silq is a High-level Programming Language for Quantum Computers


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Artist's conception of a quantum computing chip.

Switzerland's ETH Zurich has developed Silq, a high-level programming language for quantum computers.

Credit: Getty Images

Quantum computing hardware continues to improve to the point where we may actually see real-world use cases in the next few years and so it's probably no surprise that we are also seeing a steady increase in research projects that focus on how to best program these machines. One of the newest efforts in this space is Silq, a high-level programming language for quantum computers out of Switzerland's ETH Zurich.

The emphasis here is on "high-level programming language," as the researchers behind the language note that existing quantum languages for programmers still work at a very low abstraction level, which makes life for quantum programmers a lot harder than necessary.

"The history of the project is that we wanted to solve a core problem in quantum computing," ETH associate professor of computer science Martin Vechev told me. "And if you want to solve a core problem in quantum computing, for instance, if you want to analyze and reason about quantum programs, you need to have a language in which these problems are expressed — and there are existing languages. We looked at various problems in quantum computing but what kept coming up as a fundamental issue is that we looked at the programs and how they are expressed — and you see that this is not ideal, this is not optimal."

From TechCrunch
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