applications · quantum

osxQuantum Simulator.

Unified-memory quantum-circuit simulation for Apple Silicon. Built in modern C++ on MLX, with automatic Metal acceleration — no manual shaders, no explicit memory copies. Designed for the research workflow, not the demo reel.

PennyLane-compatible front end. Performance benchmarks and design notes are documented below.

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Overview

What Is osxQuantum?

osxQuantum is a state-vector quantum circuit simulator optimized for Apple Silicon, created by QNeura. It integrates tightly with MLX to deliver automatic Metal acceleration without manual shaders or explicit host-device memory copies.

The API follows PennyLane-style abstractions while remaining pure C++ for the core engine. The simulator includes an extensive gate library (Pauli, controlled gates, Toffoli, QFT), variational stacks (VQE, QAOA, QCBM), and quantum information primitives.

Validation spans 150+ executable tests and an educational appendix with fully solved QIT items for pen-and-paper verification.

How It Works

MLX keeps the quantum state as an mlx::core::array in unified memory. Kernels are JIT-compiled and dispatched across CPU/GPU automatically.

Automatic GPU offload via Metal kernels
No explicit host-device copies or shader code
Deterministic exact mode and finite-shot sampling
Energy-aware, workstation-friendly execution
Exact expectation values and shot-based sampling

Performance

Supported Benchmarks

Comprehensive benchmark coverage including standard OpenQASM workloads, variational algorithms, and time evolution simulations.

QASMBench (Small/Medium)

Reproduces standard OpenQASM workloads across chemistry, optimization, arithmetic, and machine learning circuits.

QFT & Phase Estimation

Fast Fourier primitives validated against analytical transforms and community reference data.

Variational Circuits

VQE, QAOA, QCBM with hardware-efficient ansatze and SPSA-style optimization.

Time Evolution

Trotter-Suzuki product formulas and Hamiltonian simulation (Ising/Heisenberg) on unified memory.

Grover & Oracles

Amplitude amplification with scalable oracle injection and measurement pipelines.

Steady-State (Lindblad)

Density-matrix experiments mirroring QuantumToolbox/QuTiP studies.

Selected Results (M-series)

Representative qubit counts vs wall-clock time in seconds

Random Circuit

Qubits	Time (s)
22	2.45
23	5.16
24	10.79
25	22.40

Variational (HE ansatz)

Qubits	Time (s)
22	2.11
23	4.44
24	9.23
25	19.24

Grover Search

Qubits	Time (s)
21	1.82
22	5.00
23	14.20
24	40.08

150+ Executable Tests

12 Benchmark Families

25 Qubits Simulated

<1ms Shallow Circuit Latency