The loop, in time
A Research Loop Is a Helix in Time
Every research loop has the same shape. Give it time and it is already a helix — each turn ends somewhere new, and the turns stack into direction. What differs is the pitch. A loop only a person can close turns as fast as a human can read a result, decide what it means, and set up the next run. Amico closes each turn itself, and the helix climbs as fast as the experiments can run.
The research loop drawn as a circle with its stages labelled — hypothesize, experiment, measure, decide — and the human prompt as the one station a person holds. The circle lifts into a long helix as the view rotates, showing the third dimension the loop advances along, with Amico as the axis it winds around. The same four stages repeat on every turn, and the far end of the coil thins into a dotted trail rather than ending. A helix seen straight down its own axis is indistinguishable from the loop it started as.
The first domain · Quantum control
Autonomous Research Starting with Quantum
Autonomous research needs a physical system that outruns its models, a score only the hardware can settle, and experiments fast enough to turn the loop thousands of times a day. Quantum control is all three. This is where we start.
The model gap
The hardware outruns the model.
A quantum processor is complicated enough that no model captures everything happening on it. Simulation gets close; the device gets the last word — so the loop closes on the hardware itself, never on a model of it.
The score
The hardware keeps the score.
Gates and error-correcting codes are judged by numbers the hardware itself produces — gate fidelity, error rate — one scalar per proposal, no proxy panel to argue with. The kernels already run on real devices; the work is making them better.
The cadence
The loop turns in microseconds.
A robot rollout takes minutes, a training run takes weeks; a quantum control experiment takes microseconds. Thousands of complete loops close in an afternoon, and the helix climbs on every one of them.
A loop that closes on quantum hardware — through the model gap, on the hardware’s own score, at the speed quantum turns — has already met the hard part of every other physical science. That is the system we are building, and this is where it starts.
Every layer between an application and a quantum processor is a separate tool today. Assembled, they collapse into one.
Industry standard
Harmoniqs
Toolkit
The Research Tools
A researcher needs the right tools for experimentation on device, autonomous or not. We start with the quantum toolkit — built from first principles — used to realize a self-running quantum computer.
Trajectory optimization
DirectTrajOpt
Direct collocation with no quantum in it. Piccolo is built on this, and it is the same method that plans motion for a robot or a trajectory for a spacecraft.
Trajectory data
NamedTrajectories
Trajectories with user-defined named components — the structure the tools hand back and forth, whatever the system under study is.
Robotics control
Aerospace trajectories
Compile — Pulse compilation
Legato
Interface to other circuit software packages, curated library of pulses, algorithm development, and QEC code design.
Premium
Legatissimo
Algorithms, circuits, syndrome extractions and stabilizers are all compiled into pulses. We deliver a continuously accumulated and curated library of hardware-validated multi-qubit pulses.
Optimize — Pulse optimization
Piccolo
Best-in-class, locally runnable pulse optimization and simulation toolbox, growing community.
Premium
Piccolissimo
Our frontier, in-house pulse optimizer is multi-GPU enabled, allowing us to scale to systems previously out of reach. The automated research loop is further improving performance and building the pulse library.
Calibrate — Pulse calibration
Intonato
Hardware interfacing, measurement handling, basic calibration algorithms.
Premium
Intonatissimo
Hardware calibration is the hardest and most relevant problem — our proprietary, hardware-validated calibration algorithms are being continuously refined and improved.