Toronto — January 26, 2022 — Agnostiq, Inc., a quantum computing SaaS startup, announced Covalent, an open-source workflow orchestration platform designed specifically for quantum computing and HPC technologies. Covalent aims to make quantum and high performance computing resources more accessible.
“Covalent started out as an internal tool for our quantum algorithm research team.” says Agnostiq’s head of R&D, Santosh Kumar Radha. “It was a tool designed to give my team the ability to prototype, calculate, and analyze reproducible experiments at scale right from the comfort of our laptops. We are very excited to share Covalent with the broader community,” he added.
Fueled by the technology’s rising popularity, the global market for quantum computing is expected to reach $5 billion by 2028. Quantum computing has the capabilities to speed up computations in the coming years, which is anticipated to accelerate innovations in many industry verticals. But, it remains largely inaccessible to the enterprise, due mainly to the novelty of the technology and the high level of expertise required to build applications. Agnostiq is building a suite of tools to lower the barriers for developers and enterprises to enter into the world of quantum computing.
“Covalent encourages users to break down and reuse components in scientific applications. This modularity enables users to focus on code design while abstracting away the details of how or where execution occurs. As a result, users can more easily integrate a variety of classical and quantum hardware backends into their software” says William Cunningham, Agnostiq’s head of software engineering.
Covalent solves the following challenges associated with these advanced computing technologies:
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Breaks workflows down into modular Python components, allowing users to easily reproduce repetitive code and avoid costly reruns; important in a high performance computing/quantum setting since running experiments on these devices is extremely expensive;
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Serves as a single entry point for Quantum Processors, CPUs, GPUs, and quantum-inspired hardware, with no additional setup required; and
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Includes an intelligent task scheduler that automatically selects the best hardware resource for a given task based on a mix of predefined as well as user-defined constraints.
“Open sourcing Covalent is an important part of Agnostiq’s mission to democratize access to the world’s most advanced computing technologies, such as quantum computers’ says Oktay Goktas, CEO of Agnostiq. “We have an aggressive roadmap to make Covalent a standard development tool for computationally heavy tasks that require advanced computing infrastructure such as quantum and HPC.”
The company previously secured $2 million in seed funding, led by Differential Ventures, with follow-on participation from Scout Ventures, Boost VC, Tensility Venture Partners, and Green Egg Ventures.
