Beyond Hardware: Adaptive Algorithmic Control by State-Proxy Equalization

Abstract

Recent advances in quantum computing have been driven primarily by improvements in hardware. Here we show that substantial gains can instead arise from how finite computational resources are allocated throughout a quantum computation. We introduce Adaptive Algorithmic Control (A2C), a software paradigm founded on a State-Proxy Equalization theorem, which proves that the optimal allocation for a state-derived proxy-error functional equalizes cumulative computational hardness rather than physical time. The required computational hardness is inferred directly from the evolving quantum state, avoiding explicit reconstruction of the exponentially large many-body spectrum. Across quantum optimization problems containing up to 156 qubits, combining exact simulations, large-scale supercomputer computations and IBM quantum hardware experiments, A2C improves the low-energy sampling probabilities by $22\%$ to over $100,000\%$ under matched circuit depths and measurement budgets. These results demonstrate that quantum computational performance depends not only on hardware capabilities, but also on how finite computational resources are organized, establishing adaptive algorithmic control as a complementary software pathway for advancing quantum computation.