Qiskit

WEBCAST REPLAY: Watch the replay of the Qiskit and Quantum Computing Tech Talk, recorded on March 29, 2017.

Quantum computing has the potential to change everything we know about computing. It’s based on non-traditional computer logic and is not limited merely to bits-and-bytes, on-or-off, true-or-false scenarios.

Yes, quantum computing has bits, just like any computer. But instead of ones and zeros, quantum bits, or qubits (pronounced CUE-bits), can represent a one, a zero, or both at once. This superposition is so different from what occurs in traditional systems that it can allow two of these qubits to behave in ways that can’t be explained by the individual components. This behavior is called entanglement. It’s these more complex calculations that will be used to re-imagine computing.

The IBM Q offers students, researchers, and general science enthusiasts hands-on access through a human user interface to IBM’s experimental cloud-enabled quantum computing platform. The interface allows users to run algorithms and experiments, work with quantum bits (qubits), and explore tutorials and simulations around what might be possible with quantum computing.

How can I participate?

Until now, quantum computing has largely been the realm of physicists and theorists. Developers looking to explore quantum’s exponential accelerations were on the outside looking in. That’s about to change.

The new open source Qiskit project lets you tap into the limitless possibilities of quantum computing. This project enables developers and researchers to conduct quantum explorations using Python scripts. Additionally, they can batch requests together for quantum computer interactions.

What does Qiskit include?

The Qiskit project comprises:

• Qiskit Terra: A set of tools for composing quantum programs at the level of circuits and pulses, optimizing them for the constraints of a particular physical quantum processor, and managing the batched execution of experiments on remote-access backends.
• Qiskit Aqua: A library of cross-domain quantum algorithms upon which applications for near-term quantum computing can be built.
• Qiskit Aer: A high performance simulator framework for the Qiskit software stack.

This is just the starting point. The IBM Q team plans to continually roll out new tools and functions to make the kit more usable and robust. For developers, the Quantum Computing Age starts here and now.

Explore quantum computing at IBM

Learn more about quantum computing at IBM with the following links:

• Qiskit
• IBM Q
• IBM Q community
• Announcing “IBM Q,” quantum systems and services via the IBM Cloud