November 2025

Journal

A Cross-Platform Execution Engine for the Quantum Intermediate Representation

By:
Wong, Elaine Y; Leyton Ortega, Vicente A; Chaves Claudino, Daniel ; Johnson, Seth R; Adams, Austin; Afrose, Sharmin ; Gowrishankar, Meenambika ; Cabrera, Anthony M; Humble, Travis S
Journal Name:
The Journal of Supercomputing
Page Number:
1521
Volume:
81
Publication Date:
November 11, 2025
View DOI Listing:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-025-07969-2

Abstract

Hybrid languages like the quantum intermediate representation (QIR) are essential for programming systems that mix quantum and conventional computing models, while execution of these programs is often deferred to a system-specific implementation. Here, we develop the QIR Execution Engine (QIR-EE) for parsing, interpreting, and executing QIR across multiple hardware platforms. QIR-EE uses LLVM to execute hybrid instructions specifying quantum programs and, by design, presents extension points that support customized runtime and hardware environments. We demonstrate an implementation that uses the XACC quantum hardware-accelerator library to dispatch prototypical quantum programs on different commercial quantum platforms and numerical simulators, and we validate execution of QIR-EE on IonQ, Quantinuum, and IBM hardware. Our results highlight the efficiency of hybrid executable architectures for handling mixed instructions, managing mixed data, and integrating with quantum computing frameworks to realize cross-platform execution.