Hi! I’m Pengyu Liu, a third-year Ph.D. at CMU in computer science. I am fortunate to be advised by Professor Umut A. Acar. Previously, I finished my undergraduate at Yao Class, Tsinghua University where I was advised by Professor Xiongfeng Ma.
My research interests include quantum computer systems (compiler, optimization and verification), fault-tolerant quantum computing and quantum information.
EDUCATION
2023.09-present Carnegie Mellon University
- Ph.D. Student, Computer Science Department
- Advisor: Professor Umut A. Acar
2019.09-2023.06 Tsinghua University
- Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Science, founded by Professor Andrew Yao.
- GPA: 3.98/4.00 (1/30, 4.00/4.00 in all required major courses).
- Advisor: Professor Xiongfeng Ma
Courses with grade A+ (100/100):
- Computational Thinking and System Design Foundations and Practice
- Quantum Computer Science
- Introduction to Databases
- Fundamentals of Physics (3)
- Quantum Communication and Cryptography
- Operating System
- Advanced Quantum Information Theory
- Research Immersion Training
SELECTED AWARDS
- 2023 1st/73 Place of ACM/IEEE Quantum Computing for Drug Discovery Challenge
- 2022-2023 Honored graduate, Beijing
- 2022-2023 Honored graduate, Tsinghua University (2/91)
- 2021-2022 Comprehensive Excellent Award, Tsinghua University
- 2021-2022 Yao Award, Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences.
- 2020-2021 Comprehensive Excellent Award, Tsinghua University
- 2020-2021 Outstanding Youth, Tsinghua University (2/91).
- 2019-2020 Comprehensive Excellent Award, Tsinghua University (1/91, Highest honor).
- 2018 Chinese Physics Olympiad, Gold Medal (Rank 7th national-wide).
More awards
- 2019 Freshman Award, Tsinghua University.
- 2018 Chinese Physics Olympiad (Provincial), First Prize (Rank 1st in Hebei Province).
- 2019 China Undergraduate Physics Tournament, Third Prize.
- 2020-2021 Comprehensive Excellent Award, Tsinghua University.
- 2020-2021 Outstanding Youth, Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences.
PUBLICATIONS
🎛️: Quantum Computing + Compiler
🤖: Quantum Computing + Machine Learning
🏁: Fault Tolerant Quantum Computing
⚛️: Quantum Information
🧮: Quantum Simulation
ConiQ: Enabling Concatenated Quantum Error Correction on Neutral Atom Arrays
- QCE’25
- Pengyu Liu, Mingkuan Xu, Hengyun Zhou, Hanrui Wang, Umut A. Acar, Yunong Shi
Local Optimization of Quantum Circuits
- QCE’25
- Jatin Arora, Mingkuan Xu, Sam Westrick, Pengyu Liu, Dantong Li, Yongshan Ding, Umut A. Acar
- Best Paper Award (1st place)
POPQC: Parallel Optimization for Quantum Circuits
- SPAA’25
- Pengyu Liu, Jatin Arora, Mingkuan Xu, Umut A. Acar
GraFeyn: Efficient Parallel Sparse Simulation of Quantum Circuits
- QCE’24
- Sam Westrick, Pengyu Liu, Byeongjee Kang, Colin McDonald, Mike Rainey, Mingkuan Xu, Jatin Arora, Yongshan Ding, Umut A. Acar
- Best Paper Award (2nd place)
Atomique: A Quantum Compiler for Reconfigurable Neutral Atom Arrays
- ISCA’24
- Hanrui Wang, Bochen Tan, Pengyu Liu, Yilian Liu, Jiaqi Gu, Jason Cong, Song Han
Q-Pilot: Field Programmable Qubit Array Compilation with Flying Ancillas
- DAC’24
- Hanrui Wang, Bochen Tan, Pengyu Liu, Yilian Liu, Jiaqi Gu, Jason Cong, Song Han
SIMUQ: A Domain-Specific Language for Quantum Simulation With Analog Compilation
- POPL’24
- Yuxiang Peng, Jacob Young, Pengyu Liu, Xiaodi Wu
- Distinguished Paper Nominated
Detecting Entanglement in Quantum Many-body Systems via Permutation Moments
- Physical Review Letters 129, 260501 (2022)
- Zhenhuan Liu, Yifan Tang, Hao Dai, Pengyu Liu, Shu Chen, Xiongfeng Ma
QuEst: Graph Transformer for Quantum Circuit Reliability Estimation
- ICCAD’22.
- Hanrui Wang, Pengyu Liu, Jinglei Cheng, Zhiding Liang, Jiaqi Gu, Zirui Li, Yongshan Ding, Weiwen Jiang, Yiyu Shi, Xuehai Qian, David Z. Pan, Frederic T. Chong, Song Han
Workshops
Efficient Atom Loss Decoding via Pauli Boundedness and Adaptive Re-weighting
- APS March Meeting'26
- Pengyu Liu, Shi Jie Samuel Tan, Eric Huang, Umut A. Acar, Hengyun Zhou, Chen Zhao
ResilienQ: Boosting Fidelity of Quantum State Preparation via Noise-Aware Variational Training
- FastML Workshop at ICCAD’23
- Hanrui Wang*, Yilian Liu*, Pengyu Liu*, Song Han
TT-QEC: Transferable Transformer for Quantum Error Correction Code Decoding
- FastML Workshop at ICCAD’23
- Hanrui Wang, Pengyu Liu, Kevin Shao, Dantong Li, Jiaqi Gu, David Z. Pan, Yongshan Ding, Song Han
Efficient Atom Loss Decoding via Pauli Boundedness and Adaptive Re-weighting
- Pengyu Liu, Shi Jie Samuel Tan, Eric Huang, Umut A. Acar, Hengyun Zhou, Chen Zhao
Preprints
Efficient Sampling and SAT-Based Verification of Magic State Cultivation Circuits
- Pengyu Liu, Steve Yueran Cao, Yunong Shi, Umut A. Acar
- In Preparation
QALM: Escaping Local Minima via Interleaved Exploration and Exploitation in Quantum Circuit Optimization
- Aidan Wagner*, Mingkuan Xu*, Pengyu Liu*, Zhihao Jia, Umut A. Acar
- In Preparation
QIPrune: Quantum-Inspired Pruning of Large Language Models
- Zhiyuan Jia, Pengyu Liu, Yu-Hsuan Wu, Tabish Shaik, Jianhao Ma, Jiaqi Leng, Xiaodi Wu, Chaoyue Zhao, Yuxiang Peng
- In preparation
Achieving Optimal-Distance Atom-Loss Correction via Pauli Envelope
- Pengyu Liu, Shi Jie Samuel Tan, Eric Huang, Umut A. Acar, Hengyun Zhou, Chen Zhao
- PRX Quantum in submission
DGR: Tackling Drifted and Correlated Noise in Quantum Error Correction via Decoding Graph Re-weighting
- Hanrui Wang*, Pengyu Liu*, Yilian Liu, Jiaqi Gu, Jonathan Baker, Frederic T. Chong, Song Han
Teaching Experience
- 2026 Teaching Assistant “15-898: Quantum Computing Systems”
- 2026 Teaching Assistant “15-459: Undergraduate Quantum Computation”
- 2023 Teaching Assistant “General Physics”
- 2022 Teaching Assistant “Quantum Communication and Cryptography”
Working and Exchanging Experiences
- Amazon (AWS Center for Quantum Computing)
- 2026.05 - 2026.08
- Advised by Dr. Catherine Leroux.
- Worked on qLDPC decoding on biased errors with belief propagation.
- QuEra Computing Incorporated, Boston, MA, Research Intern
- 2025.05-2025.08
- Advised by Dr. Chen Zhao.
- Worked on simulation and decoding of quantum error correction with the presence of atom loss.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, MA, Research Assistant
- 2022.07-2023.06.
- Advised by Prof. Song Han.
- Worked on quantum machine learning and quantum computer architecture.
- University of Maryland, College Park, MD, Research Assistant
- 2022.03-2022.11.
- Advised by Prof. Xiaodi Wu.
- Worked on analog quantum simulation.
Academic Services
- Organizing Committee of Quantum Computing Applications and Systems Workshop (QCAS'26)
- Organizing Committee of Quantum Computer System Lecture Series
- Organizing Committee of Yao Seminar
- Journal Review:
- IEEE Transactions on Quantum Engineering
- ACM Transactions on Quantum Computing
- Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing
- Quantum Information Processing
- Future Generation Computer Systems
- ACM Computing Surveys
- Conference Review:
- IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering (2024, 2025)
- ACM Symposium on Parallelism in Algorithms and Architectures (2025)
LEADERSHIP & SOCIAL WORK
- Monitor of Yao Class (Yao Class 91).
- Best Class Award in Tsinghua.
- Vice-chairman of the Student Warm&Love Association.
- Best-10 Association in Tsinghua.