NUMERICAL QUANTUM EXPERIMENTATION

Methods, systems, and apparatus for numerical quantum experimentation. In one aspect, a method includes identtifying (i) a computational problem that is a candidate for a quantum computation, and (ii) one or more numerical algorithms for solving the candidate computational problem; providing input task data identifying (i) the candidate computational problem, and (ii) the one or more numerical algorithms, to a numerical quantum experimentation system, wherein the numerical quantum experimentation system comprises multiple universal numerics workers, a universal numerics worker, of the multiple universal numerics workers being configured to solve the candidate computational problem using the one or more numerical algorithms; receiving, from the numerical quantum experimentation system, data representing results of the one or more numerical algorithms to solve the candidate computational problem; and determining whether the received data indicates that a quantum computation applied to the candidate computational problem has a greater efficacy for arriving at a solution than a classical computation applied to the candidate computational problem.