Quantum network simulation is an essential step towards developing applications for quantum networks and determining minimal requirements for the network hardware. As it is with classical networking, a simulation ecosystem allows for application development, standardization, and overall community building. Currently, there is limited traction towards building a quantum networking community-there are limited open-source platforms, challenging frameworks with steep learning curves, and strong requirements of software engineering skills. Our Quantum Network Development Kit (QNDK) project aims to solve these issues. It includes a graphical user interface to easily develop and run quantum network simulations with very little code. It integrates various quantum network simulation engines and provides a single interface to them, allowing users to use the features from any of them. Further, it deploys simulation execution in a cloud environment, offloading strong computing requirements to a high-performance computing system. In this paper, we detail the core features of the QNDK and outline the development roadmap to enabling virtual quantum testbeds.

翻译：量子网络模拟是开发量子网络应用和确定网络硬件最低要求的关键步骤。与经典网络类似，模拟生态系统支持应用开发、标准化和整体社区建设。目前，量子网络社区建设进展有限——开源平台稀少，框架学习曲线陡峭，且对软件工程技能要求严苛。我们的量子网络开发套件（QNDK）项目旨在解决这些问题。它包含一个图形用户界面，可通过极少代码轻松开发和运行量子网络模拟。该套件集成了多种量子网络模拟引擎，并提供统一接口，使用户能够利用任一引擎的功能。此外，它将模拟执行部署于云环境，将高强度计算需求卸载至高性能计算系统。本文详述了QNDK的核心特性，并规划了实现虚拟量子测试平台的开发路线图。