Rent’s rule and extensibility in quantum computing

Abstract Quantum computing is on the verge of a transition from fundamental research to practical applications. Yet, to make the step to large-scale quantum computation, an extensible qubit system has to be developed. In classical semiconductor technology, this was made possible by the invention of the integrated circuit, which allowed to interconnect large numbers of components without having to solder to each and every one of them. Similarly, we expect that the scaling of interconnections and control lines with the number of qubits will be a central bottleneck in creating large-scale quantum technology. Here, we define the quantum Rent exponent p to quantify the progress in overcoming this challenge at different levels throughout the quantum computing stack. We further discuss the concept of quantum extensibility as an indicator of a platform’s potential to reach the large quantum volume needed for universal quantum computing and review extensibility limits faced by different qubit implementations on the way towards truly large-scale qubit systems.