Quantum parallelism meets lattice Boltzmann: A hybrid efficient framework for advection–diffusion simulation

Quantum computing offers a promising pathway to accelerate fluid dynamics simulations. In this work, we propose a hybrid quantum-classical lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) for solving the advection–diffusion equation, as a step toward an efficient and general quantum linear solver framework for fluid flows. Quantum circuits handle the computationally intensive collision and streaming steps, exploiting quantum parallelism and removing parameter constraints, while boundary corrections are managed classically to avoid unnecessary overhead. Various boundary conditions are incorporated within the quantum framework, enhancing the flexibility and applicability of the method. Numerical experiments with Gaussian hill initial conditions under periodic boundaries and zero initial conditions under mixed Dirichlet–Neumann boundaries, each in one and two dimensions, demonstrate the precision of the proposed approach. The computational complexity is analyzed in detail. The collision and streaming steps achieve a lower complexity than their classical LBM counterparts, although overall performance is still limited by the input and output costs. This work represents a critical step toward the practical quantum simulation of complex fluid flows.