Quantum computing is a novel computing paradigm that seeks to exploit quantum mechanics to yield algorithmic improvements (in some cases exponential) on certain classes of problems. In practice, quantum devices are controlled by systems of classical, real-time hardware. To execute a quantum program it is therefore necessary to compile the quantum program to the target classical hardware, which in turn emits and receives the signals that control and measure a quantum device.

This talk will present a brief introduction to quantum computing and an overview of the compilation tools used to compile a quantum program to run on quantum hardware. Both MLIR and LLVM are found at the heart of these compiler tools, including a new MLIR dialect, QUIR, for Quantum programs, quantum-specific optimizations performed on QUIR, and the traditional LLVM infrastructure to do much of the final code generation. This talk will focus on how quantum programs flow through this compiler and are converted into instructions to enable some of the first quantum experiments with real-time control-flow to run on superconducting qubits.