ATHENA: A Compiler For Optimized Scheduling In Distributed Quantum Computers
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2605.21795 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 20 May 2026] Title:ATHENA: A Compiler For Optimized Scheduling In Distributed Quantum Computers Authors:Won Joon Yun (1), Dhilan Nag (1), Sneha Ballabh (1), Jiapeng Zhao (2), Eneet Kaur (2), Poulami Das (1) ((1) The University of Texas at Austin (2) Cisco Quantum Lab) View a PDF of the paper titled ATHENA: A Compiler For Optimized Scheduling In Distributed Quantum Computers, by Won Joon Yun (1) and 5 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Distributed Quantum Computers (DQCs) enable large system sizes by connecting smaller chips via photonic interconnects. DQCs use teleportation to relocate qubits and execute CNOTs between qubits on different chips. However, non-local CNOTs are 4.3-7.7$\times$ slower and 4$\times$ more error-prone than local CNOTs within a chip, which degrades program fidelities. Existing compilers group CNOTs with overlapping qubits into blocks and collectively optimize teleportations for each block. However, block-level scheduling has two key drawbacks. First, it lacks lookahead ability across blocks because it selects the optimal schedule for one block before proceeding to the next. As a result, it cannot assess the impact of a teleportation on future blocks. Our studies show that naively expanding the lookahead window to include subsequent blocks does not address this issue. Second, existing approaches do not schedule future block operations or the teleportations they require until preceding blocks are fully scheduled, introducing delay and latency overheads. We propose ATHENA, a DQC compiler that addresses these limitations using two key insights: Utility-driven Lookahead with Multi-Candidate Block Scheduling (UMS) and EPR-Capacity-Aware Early Scheduling (EES). UMS schedules a block by considering only useful future blocks in its lookahead window. A future block has utility if it shares overlapping qubits with the current block being scheduled. UMS also maintains multiple schedules during compilation, allowing it to defer commitment to globally sub-optimal schedules early in the compilation process. EES enables ATHENA to schedule future operations and their relocations early when EPR resources are available. Our evaluations show that ATHENA reduces teleportations by 34% on average and up to 65%, and reduces latency by 2$\times$ on average and up to 2.9$\times$ compared to the state-of-the-art. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2605.21795 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2605.21795v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.21795 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Won Joon Yun [view email] [v1] Wed, 20 May 2026 22:43:03 UTC (1,495 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled ATHENA: A Compiler For Optimized Scheduling In Distributed Quantum Computers, by Won Joon Yun (1) and 5 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-05 References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)