lift-export 0.2.0

LIFT-EXPORT: Backends — LLVM IR, OpenQASM 3, CUDA PTX (planned), XLA (planned)
Documentation

LIFT

Language for Intelligent Frameworks and Technologies

The first Intermediate Representation built natively for both AI and Quantum Computing.

Simulate before you run. Compile once. Optimise everywhere.

License: MIT Rust Tests Version Status

Overview

LIFT is a unified compiler infrastructure that treats AI computation (tensors, gradients, attention) and quantum computation (qubits, gates, noise models) as first-class citizens in the same SSA-based intermediate representation. One .lif source file, one .lith config, one pipeline: simulate, predict, optimise, compile.

 .lif source ──► LIFT-CORE (SSA IR) ──► SIMULATE ──► PREDICT ──► OPTIMISE ──► COMPILE
                      │                                                          │
          ┌───────────┼───────────┐                                 ┌────────────┼────────────┐
     LIFT-TENSOR  LIFT-QUANTUM  LIFT-HYBRID                    CUDA (GPU)   OpenQASM 3   LLVM (CPU)
     90+ tensor   50+ gates     21 hybrid                      H100/A100    IBM/Rigetti   AVX-512
     operations   Kraus/QEC     VQC/VQE ops                    MI300        IonQ          OpenMP

Why LIFT?

No existing IR handles both AI and quantum in a single representation.

Capability MLIR ONNX OpenQASM Qiskit LIFT
AI tensor operations Y Y - - Y
Quantum gate operations - - Y Y Y
Unified AI + Quantum IR - - - ~ Y
Noise as type-level attribute - - - - Y
Linear qubit types (no-cloning) - - - - Y
Budget enforcement before compile - - - - Y
Single config for entire pipeline - - - - Y
Performance prediction engine - - - - Y

Key: Y = implemented, ~ = partial, - = not supported

What makes LIFT unique

  1. One IR for AI + Quantum -- Both are equal citizens in the same SSA graph. Joint optimisation across classical and quantum operations.
  2. Noise in the type system -- Every quantum gate carries T1/T2, fidelity, crosstalk metadata. The compiler reasons about noise at every stage.
  3. Linear qubit types -- The no-cloning theorem enforced at compile time. Double-use of a qubit is a type error, not a runtime crash.
  4. Simulation-first compilation -- FLOP count, peak memory, circuit depth, expected fidelity, energy cost -- all computed before hardware runs. Budget violations halt compilation with actionable suggestions.
  5. One config language -- The .lith file replaces 6-8 separate configuration files across frameworks.

Architecture

  USER        .lif source  |  .lith config  |  lift(1) CLI
  FRONTEND    Lexer > Parser > AST > SSA Builder  |  Importers: ONNX, PyTorch FX, OpenQASM 3
  DIALECTS    LIFT-CORE  |  LIFT-TENSOR  |  LIFT-QUANTUM  |  LIFT-HYBRID
  ANALYSIS    Shape inference  |  FLOP count  |  Noise sim  |  Energy model  |  Roofline
  PASSES      TensorFusion  FlashAttention  GateCancellation  RotationMerge  LayoutMapping  CSE ...
  BACKENDS    CUDA (PTX)  |  OpenQASM 3  |  LLVM IR  |  XLA (planned)
  HARDWARE    H100 / A100 / MI300  |  IBM Kyoto / Rigetti / IonQ  |  TPU

Crate Map

Crate Purpose Key contents
lift-core SSA IR foundation Types, values, operations, blocks, regions, verifier, printer, pass manager
lift-ast Frontend Lexer, parser, AST, IR builder for .lif files
lift-tensor AI dialect 90+ ops (attention, conv, pooling, MoE, quantisation, GNN, fused), shape inference
lift-quantum Quantum dialect 50+ gates (IBM/Rigetti/IonQ native), noise models, Kraus channels, QEC, topology
lift-hybrid Fusion dialect 21 ops (VQC, VQE, QAOA), gradient methods, encoding strategies, GPU-QPU transfer
lift-sim Analysis engine Cost models (A100/H100), quantum cost (superconducting/trapped-ion/neutral-atom), energy, carbon
lift-predict Prediction Roofline model, budget enforcement
lift-opt Optimisation 11 passes: DCE, constant fold, tensor fusion, flash attention, gate cancel, rotation merge, CSE, quantisation, noise-aware schedule, layout mapping, canonicalise
lift-import Importers ONNX, PyTorch FX, OpenQASM 3
lift-export Backends LLVM IR, OpenQASM 3
lift-config Configuration .lith parser and validator
lift-cli CLI lift verify, lift analyse, lift print, lift optimise, lift export

Quick Start

# Install Rust 1.80+
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

# Clone and build
git clone https://github.com/lift-framework/lift
cd lift
cargo build --release

# Run tests (505 tests)
cargo test --workspace

Example: Tensor Program

cat > hello.lif << 'EOF'
#dialect tensor
module @test {
    func @forward(%x: tensor<4xf32>) -> tensor<4xf32> {
        %out = "tensor.relu"(%x) : (tensor<4xf32>) -> tensor<4xf32>
        return %out
    }
}
EOF

lift verify  hello.lif    # Check IR well-formedness
lift analyse hello.lif    # FLOPs, shapes, memory estimate
lift print   hello.lif    # Pretty-print the IR

Example: Quantum Circuit

#dialect quantum
module @bell {
    func @bell_state() -> (bit, bit) {
        %q0 = "quantum.init"() : () -> qubit
        %q1 = "quantum.init"() : () -> qubit
        %q0 = "quantum.h"(%q0)         : (qubit) -> qubit
        %q0, %q1 = "quantum.cx"(%q0, %q1) : (qubit, qubit) -> (qubit, qubit)
        %b0 = "quantum.measure"(%q0) : (qubit) -> bit
        %b1 = "quantum.measure"(%q1) : (qubit) -> bit
        return %b0, %b1
    }
}

The .lith Configuration

One file controls the entire compilation pipeline:

compilation {
    target {
        gpu  { backend = "cuda"  arch = "sm_90"  memory_limit_gb = 80 }
        qpu  { provider = "ibm"  backend_name = "ibm_kyoto"  shots = 4096 }
    }
}
optimization {
    pipeline = ["canonicalize", "tensor-fusion", "gate-cancellation", "layout-mapping"]
}
prediction {
    budget { max_latency_ms = 200  min_fidelity = 0.92  max_memory_gb = 40 }
}

Optimisation Passes

Pass Domain Description
Canonicalise All Normalise IR to canonical form
Constant Folding All Evaluate compile-time constants
Dead Code Elimination All Remove unused operations
Tensor Fusion AI Fuse MatMul+Bias+ReLU chains (30-50% bandwidth reduction)
Flash Attention AI Replace O(n^2) attention with tiled O(n) (10-20x speedup)
Quantisation AI INT8/FP8 annotation (4x model size reduction)
Common Subexpression Elimination All Deduplicate identical computations
Gate Cancellation Quantum H*H=I, Rz(a)*Rz(b)=Rz(a+b) (15-40% depth reduction)
Rotation Merge Quantum Merge consecutive rotation gates
Noise-Aware Schedule Quantum Reorder gates for maximum fidelity
Layout Mapping Quantum SABRE routing to physical qubit topology

Current Status

Component Status Coverage
lift-core Stable SSA IR, types, verifier, printer, pass manager
lift-ast Stable Full lexer, parser, AST, IR builder
lift-tensor Stable 90+ operations, shape inference, FLOP counting
lift-quantum Stable 50+ gates, noise models, Kraus channels, QEC codes, topology
lift-hybrid Stable 21 operations, gradient methods, encoding strategies
lift-sim Stable Cost models, energy model, quantum simulation, budget tracking
lift-predict Stable Roofline model, budget enforcement
lift-opt Stable 11 optimisation passes
lift-import Active ONNX, PyTorch FX, OpenQASM 3 importers
lift-export Active LLVM IR, OpenQASM 3 exporters
lift-config Stable .lith parser and types
lift-cli Stable verify, analyse, print, optimise, export

Test suite: 505 tests, 100% pass rate across 12 crates.

Roadmap

Phase Target Milestone
Core IR + Dialects Done SSA IR, tensor/quantum/hybrid dialects complete
Optimisation Passes Done 11 passes implemented and tested
Analysis Engine Done Cost models, energy, noise simulation
Import/Export Active ONNX, PyTorch FX, LLVM, OpenQASM
Hardware Backends Planned CUDA PTX, native OpenQASM execution
Python Bindings Planned PyO3-based Python API
v1.0 Release Q4 2026 Full pipeline, benchmarks, arXiv paper

Contributing

Area Difficulty Description
CUDA PTX backend Hard GPU code generation for tensor ops
State vector simulator Medium Quantum circuit simulator (CPU + GPU)
Qiskit importer Medium Import Qiskit circuits into LIFT IR
API documentation Easy Rustdoc for all public items
Tutorials Easy Getting started guides and examples

See CONTRIBUTING.md for code style and PR process.

Citation

@software{lift2025,
  title  = {LIFT: Language for Intelligent Frameworks and Technologies},
  author = {Martial-Christian and Contributors},
  year   = {2025},
  url    = {https://github.com/lift-framework/lift},
  note   = {Unified IR for AI and Quantum Computing}
}

License

MIT -- see LICENSE.

LIFT -- Because the future of computation is both intelligent and quantum, and it deserves a unified foundation.