Why simulating FTQC is so hard

Simulating fault-tolerant quantum circuits is really, really hard!

It’s not enough to model idealized circuits—we need to capture the full evolution of noisy, imperfect hardware to design real-world quantum systems.

That means tracking quantum states with exponentially growing numbers of complex amplitudes, accounting for multi-level qudits, and modeling detailed gate errors. Even the best CPU-based simulators hit a wall.

With GPU acceleration, Plaquette can now simulate 400+ qubits on a single RTX 4000—unlocking surface code simulations at distances beyond 5 and speeding up design iterations by up to 180×.

This is a big step for hardware teams working on scalable quantum systems.

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