  We study the preparation of thermal states of the dense and sparse
Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model using a variational quantum algorithm for $6 \le
N \le 12$ Majorana fermions over a wide range of temperatures. Utilizing IBM's
127-qubit quantum processor, we perform benchmark computations for the dense
SYK model with $N = 6$, showing good agreement with exact results. The
preparation of thermal states of a non-local random Hamiltonian with all-to-all
coupling using the simulator and quantum hardware represents a significant step
toward future computations of thermal out-of-time order correlators in quantum
many-body systems.
