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arXiv · 2603.13607

The Quest for Quantum Advantage in Combinatorial Optimization: End-to-end Benchmarking of Quantum Solvers vs. Multi-core Classical Solvers

Pranav Chandarana·Alejandro Gomez Cadavid·Enrique Solano·Thorsten Koch·Stefan Woerner·Narendra N. Hegade
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Abstract

We perform an end-to-end benchmark of a hybrid sequential quantum computing (HSQC) solver for higher-order unconstrained binary optimization (HUBO), executed on IBM Heron r3 quantum processors to evaluate the potential of current quantum hardware for combinatorial optimization with sub-second end-to-end runtimes. All reported runtimes include the complete pipeline--from preprocessing to QPU execution and postprocessing--under strict wall-clock accounting. Across 20 benchmark instances, a single hybrid attempt produces high-quality solutions in less than one second, matching the ground-state energy in 14 cases. At the same runtime, CPU-based solvers, including simulated annealing, memetic tabu search, and EasySolve, do not reach the value obtained by HSQC, whereas an enhanced parallel tempering method and the GPU-accelerated solver ABS3 reach or surpass it. These results show that HSQC, executed on a single QPU, can achieve performance competitive with strong classical solvers running on 128 vCPUs or 8 NVIDIA A100 GPUs, while also providing a reproducible system-level benchmark for tracking progress as quantum hardware and hybrid sequential workflows improve.

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Pranav Chandarana, Alejandro Gomez Cadavid, Enrique Solano, Thorsten Koch, Stefan Woerner, Narendra N. Hegade. 2026-03-13. The Quest for Quantum Advantage in Combinatorial Optimization: End-to-end Benchmarking of Quantum Solvers vs. Multi-core Classical Solvers. https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.13607

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