A challenge for scalability of demand-responsive, elastic optical Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) and Flexgrid networks is the computational complexity of allocating many optical routes on large networks. We demonstrate that demand satisfaction problems in communication networks can be formulated as quadratic unconstrained binary optimisation (QUBO) problems, and solved using a hybrid quantum annealer. Efficient encodings are developed which solve both unicast and multicast multicommodity-flow problems, while also adhering to individual requirements for maximum latency and resilience for each route. We present several QUBO formulations and analyse the qubit scaling. We demonstrate solutions using a hybrid solver, D-Wave Quantum Advantage QPU. Progress in generating optimal solutions with efficient use of computational resources will be beneficial to telecoms operators, enabling them to run dynamic optical network infrastructures which use resources efficiently, are resilient to local faults and cyber-attacks, and can be elastically responsive to demands.

翻译：可弹性按需响应的光密集波分复用（DWDM）与Flexgrid网络在扩展性方面面临的核心挑战，在于大规模网络环境下分配众多光路由的计算复杂度。本研究证明，通信网络中的需求满足问题可表述为二次无约束二元优化（QUBO）问题，并可通过混合量子退火器求解。我们开发了高效的编码方案，在满足每条路由最大延迟与弹性等个性化约束的同时，成功解决了单播与多播多商品流问题。本文提出了多种QUBO公式化表述，并分析了量子比特的扩展特性。我们采用混合求解器D-Wave Quantum Advantage QPU验证了解方案的可行性。在高效利用计算资源的前提下生成最优解的技术进步，将助力电信运营商构建高效利用资源、抵御局部故障与网络攻击、并能弹性响应需求的动态光网络基础设施。