Simulating Large Quantum Circuits on a Small Quantum Computer

Limited quantum memory is one of the most important constraints for near-term quantum devices. Understanding whether a small quantum computer can simulate a larger quantum system, or execute an algorithm requiring more qubits than available, is both of theoretical and practical importance. In this Letter, we introduce cluster parameters K and d of a quantum circuit. The tensor network of such a circuit can be decomposed into clusters of size at most d with at most K qubits of inter-cluster quantum communication. We propose a cluster simulation scheme that can simulate any (K, d)-clustered quantum circuit on a d-qubit machine in time roughly 2(O(K)), with further speedups possible when taking more fine-grained circuit structure into account. We show how our scheme can be used to simulate clustered quantum systems-such as large molecules-that can be partitioned into multiple significantly smaller clusters with weak interactions among them. By using a suitable clustered ansatz, we also experimentally demonstrate that a quantum variational eigensolver can still achieve the desired performance for estimating the energy of the BeH2 molecule while running on a physical quantum device with half the number of required qubits.