NISQ

English

Etymology

Coined by physicist John Preskill in 2018 (see quotations below).

Noun

NISQ (plural NISQs)

1. (quantum computing, attributive, neologism) Acronym of noisy intermediate-scale quantum (computer).
   • [2018, John Preskill, “Quantum Computing in the NISQ era and beyond”, in Quantum‎^[1], volume 2, page 82:

     For this talk, I needed a name to describe this impending new era, so I made up a word: NISQ. This stands for Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum.]

   • 2021, Srinjoy Ganguly, Thomas Cambier, Quantum Computing with Silq Programming, Packt Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, page 86:

     The quantum computing era that we are living in today is known as the NISQ era, as mentioned in the previous section.

   • 2022 July 28, “Google seeks quantum gains in Aussie labs”, in The Australian Financial Review, Melbourne, page 3:

     Initially, Google would be focusing on so-called "noisy intermediate-scale quantum" (NISQ) algorithms, he said. NISQ is the low-hanging fruit of quantum computing that scientists hope will make the technology useful this decade.

   • 2023 January 13, “United Kingdom: Making better, faster decisions with quantum computing”, in Asia News Monitor, Bangkok:

     To my knowledge, this is the first piece of work to demonstrate quantum benefit using a NISQ machine to solve militarily important problems and that will build confidence and underpin continued investment in quantum information processing by the UK MOD and Government.

Anagrams

• qins