Measuring Control-Plane Openness in Near-Term Quantum Computing: A Rubric, Its Validation, and an Application to Thirteen Vendor Stacks

Summary

arXiv:2605.15233v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Public access to pulse-level and control-electronics interfaces in commercial quantum computing has bifurcated. This paper proposes a six-axis rubric for measuring control-plane openness, the layer between gate-level circuit specification and physical control electronics, defined operationally so that the same evidence produces the same grade across vendors. The rubric is validated three ways: a blinded re-grading pass, thirty-nine days after the evidence cutoff, that tests whether the cited evidence and the level definitions alone reproduce the recorded grades; a boundary-case methodology that fixes where each level begins and ends; and a published grading protocol that lets others reproduce and contest any cell.