IBM has expanded Qiskit, its globally adopted quantum software, to harness the power of utility-scale quantum hardware fully. The latest version of Qiskit is a comprehensive software stack that enables users to run complex quantum circuits on 100+ qubit IBM quantum computers. This expansion will equip the IBM Quantum Network members with the most performant Qiskit capabilities to discover the next generation of quantum algorithms. IBM has spent the last seven years developing these tools, which are now part of the Qiskit software stack. The expanded software stack includes AI-powered optimization of quantum circuits, simplified execution modes, and a serverless open-source tool.
IBM’s Qiskit: A Comprehensive Quantum Software Stack
IBM has announced the expansion of Qiskit, its open-source quantum software development kit (SDK). Since its launch in 2017, Qiskit has been used by over 550,000 users to build and run quantum circuits on IBM’s quantum hardware systems, resulting in the execution of over 3 trillion quantum circuits. The latest version of Qiskit has been expanded to a comprehensive software stack, designed to deliver improved performance while running complex quantum circuits on 100+ qubit IBM quantum computers.
The evolution of Qiskit is aimed at enabling users to fully harness the power of utility-scale quantum hardware. To achieve quantum advantage, users require a toolset that can map their problems in a way that leverages both advanced classical and quantum computation, optimizes the problem for efficient execution with quantum, and then effectively executes the quantum circuits on real quantum hardware. IBM has spent the last seven years developing these tools, which are now coming together to comprise the Qiskit software stack.
Qiskit’s Expanded Software Stack
The expanded software stack of Qiskit includes the stable release of Qiskit SDK v1.x for building, optimizing, and visualizing quantum circuits. It also includes AI-powered optimization of quantum circuits for quantum hardware, embedded in the Qiskit Transpiler Service. Simplified execution modes for the Qiskit Runtime Service can be tailored for performant execution of quantum circuits on quantum hardware. The Qiskit Code Assistant, powered by watsonx-based generative AI models, automates the development of quantum code. The Qiskit Serverless open-source tool allows users to run quantum-centric supercomputing workloads across quantum hardware and classical clusters.
The deployment of new capabilities and improvements within Qiskit SDK are enabling users to optimize circuits for quantum hardware at a rate 39 times faster than Qiskit 0.331. Qiskit also is engineered to reduce the overhead and shrink the footprint of circuits, demonstrating an average of 3 times reduction in memory usage compared to Qiskit 0.43.2. Using the Qiskit Transpiler Service, users can reduce circuit depth by combining AI and heuristic passes, compared to using the Qiskit SDK without AI optimization.
Qiskit’s Role in Quantum Computing Adoption
The global adoption of quantum computing and the discovery of quantum advantage will require a combination of leading quantum hardware alongside a robust and performant software stack to run workloads. These two pillars are fundamental to the algorithm discovery that has begun on utility-scale quantum hardware. As a growing quantum ecosystem maps their most difficult problems to quantum circuits, the Qiskit stack will be the cornerstone to exploring the computational spaces in which quantum computing excels.
IBM first demonstrated the utility-scale capabilities of its quantum hardware in 2023. This signaled the start of an era in which quantum hardware can run quantum circuits faster and more accurately than a classical computer simulating a quantum computer can. Now built to maximize the performance of advanced quantum hardware, the Qiskit software stack aims to help a global ecosystem of users discover new quantum algorithms that explore where quantum computers could be the best way to solve challenges over any classical method.
Qiskit’s Impact on Various Industries
Qiskit has been adopted by various enterprises, government organizations, research institutions, and universities for running large-scale quantum experiments. For instance, E.ON, a major player in the energy industry, uses Qiskit to navigate the financial and operational complexities of the energy industry. Los Alamos National Laboratory uses Qiskit to interact with IBM’s quantum hardware backends and to test new algorithmic ideas. Brookhaven National Laboratory has used Qiskit to execute circuits on IBM’s quantum hardware, resulting in almost 20 published papers to date.
The Department of Energy’s Quantum Science Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory believes that advances in quantum computing software can help support the innovation and rapid growth of their user community and their developing technologies. Q-CTRL, a quantum technology company, is also enthusiastic about building with Qiskit, citing its flexible new interfaces and enhanced stability as enabling factors for efficiently building simple abstractions on top of their powerful performance-management software at utility scale.
Qiskit: Built for the Era of Quantum Utility and Beyond
Through its support of rapidly advancing quantum hardware, including vendor-agnostic flexibility, the Qiskit software stack is designed to run the breakthrough quantum circuits to progress the era of quantum utility. This is achieved by replacing performance-critical code with the Rust programming language, alongside a full portfolio of tools to enable the efficient execution of quantum circuits.
As IBM continues to build milestones along its IBM Quantum Development and Innovation Roadmap towards error-corrected systems, the company expects that Qiskit will continue to deliver a framework for open, iterative, and collaborative development of new quantum algorithms and applications, done in conjunction with a growing global ecosystem of clients across industries and domain expertise areas.
These advancing capabilities aim to help users weave together classical and quantum computing resources into a new paradigm of high-performance computing defined by quantum-centric supercomputing that integrates QPUs, GPUs, and CPUs. Orchestrated through the performant software layer of Qiskit, this next evolution of high-performance computing aims to open up new, large, and powerful spaces for industries globally.
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