Early Access Program

We provide quantum computing access to scientists developing algorithms for noisy-intermediate-scale quantum processors. The goal is to advance the NISQ state-of-the-art in new algorithms, tools, and characterizations that lead to useful applications. Approved projects will run programs in collaboration with Google researchers on Sycamore via our Quantum Engine API.

Apply for hardware access Read our Quantum Computing Service guide

How it works

We are interested in proposals for projects that advance capabilities and algorithms on the road to practical applications.

Submit a research proposal

Write a short, 2–3 page proposal addressing the following items, and attach it to your application. The proposal should include:

  1. Researcher backgrounds: Provide names, institute affiliation, and CVs for researchers working on the project
  2. Research summary: Write a brief summary of the research behind the project, including impact and justification
  3. Project overview: Clearly outline the technical problem statement and research goals for the project
  4. Resources required: Summarize the anticipated hours of machine time, width, and depth needed to run your experiment
  5. Prerequisites: Summarize any previous experience with quantum hardware, including past collaborations or funding
  6. Desired outcomes: Tell us what the intended outcome will be from your experiment, and what you plan to do with the results

We review your proposal

We review proposals on a monthly basis. Our reviewers prioritize projects that align eligibility requirements as described on this page.

Approved projects get started

If your proposal is approved, you will sign an access agreement and select a Google technical sponsor. Initially, you will be onboarded with open queue access to test on Google’s quantum processors, including Sycamore. If your research advances and requires dedicated access, a reservation budget will be assigned to allow for more extensive data taking.

Access considerations

Priorities

We offer access to Google’s advanced superconducting qubit hardware to accelerate NISQ algorithm development. Research should be novel and contribute to progress in algorithm development. It helps the proposal to have previous simulation results of your experiment using Cirq’s simulators. And we look for resource estimates such as width (number of qubits), depth, and shot count. There should be clear outcomes such as submission to a peer-reviewed publication or usage of the processors in coursework. We find researchers are most productive when they can dedicate several months to sustained experimentation adapting their circuits to the hardware for optimal performance.

Eligibility

Any sincere quantum computing researcher is eligible, including university faculty, startups, and companies that have a Quantum Computing Service contract with Google.

Apply for hardware access

Featured experiments

See example noisy intermediate scale experiments that we ran on the quantum processors in our lab.

Quantum supremacy using a programmable superconducting processor

On Oct 23, 2019, Google announced it performed a calculation on a quantum processor in 300 seconds that would be impractical with the algorithms available at the time.
Blog post Paper

Hartree-Fock on a superconducting qubit quantum computer

The largest experimental quantum computation of chemistry to date, with double the qubits and 10X the number of gates than the previous record. We demonstrated new error mitigation techniques and modeled a chemical reaction mechanism for the first time.
Paper Code

QAOA of Non-Planar Graph Problems on a Planar Superconducting Processor

Using the Sycamore superconducting processor, we demonstrate the quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) for combinatorial optimization problems.
Paper Code

Observation of separated dynamics of charge and spin in the Fermi-Hubbard model

We implemented a high precision simulation of the Fermi-Hubbard model using over 1000 gates on a programmable quantum processor
Paper Code

Our quantum computing hardware

See the leading research hardware powering our quantum experiments.

Learn more