We report an ensemble nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) implementation of a quantum lattice gas algorithm for the diffusion equation. The algorithm employs an array of quantum information processors sharing classical information, a novel architecture referred to as a type-II quantum computer. This concrete implementation provides a test example from which to probe the strengths and limitations of this new computation paradigm. The NMR experiment consists of encoding a mass density onto an array of 16 two-qubit quantum information processors and then following the computation through 7 time steps of the algorithm. The results show good agreement with the analytic solution for diffusive dynamics. We also describe numerical simulations of the NMR implementation. The simulations aid in determining sources of experimental errors, and they help define the limits of the implementation.

20 pages, 3 figures