Qiskit Metal is a toolkit designed to allow automated development and designing of quantum devices. It has a flexible interface to let users design their own devices before exporting them with a click. With Metal, complicated processes are made simpler and faster than ever.
Some of the features of Metal are:
End-to-end automation
Metal can automate both classical and quantum analysis seamlessly. Simply choose from the default tools or use your own as installed plug-ins. Exporting the designs are easy, just one click.
Flexible and customisable
Metal’s GUI, Jupyter, Simulator, and Physical Output views can be customised. Its Python API and tool selections are perfect for custom creations. You can even use commercial-tool backends to import or export, and it is linked to high-end simulators.
Lightweight interoperability
The all-in-one platform of Metal unifies designing, simulating, and quantum analysis in one powerful package. It bridges classical electronic design automation (EDA) and electromagnetic simulation tools with quantum analysis tools. Metal can also define quantum device design abstraction, and Qiskit’s vision is to allow users with little to no programming knowledge to develop devices.
Tested in experiments
The Qiskit team developed the methods Metal uses. Minev, McConkey, and Gambetta will share some of the early results demonstrating percent-level agreement between design and analysis and experimental hardware. This will be published soon.
Extensive library
The library provided with Metal is very well-equipped. Both the developers and community made tools for it. As it is in an early stage of life, the team is looking for more developers.
Cutting edge resources
With Metal, you can employ the latest simulation and analysis techniques available as well as built-in functions. Testing Metal’s functions is a soon-to-be reality. You will be a part of the movement to innovate quantum hardware.
As Metal is just beginning to be developed, Qiskit is hoping to fully flesh it out and allow superconducting quantum hardware and other quantum computing products to be designed on it. This is in the hopes of wider use by microchip developers and other developers writing programs and plugins compatible with Metal.
Currently, Qiskit is keeping Metal as an open-source project to allow the community to assist in its development. Its vision is to make Metal a complete and powerful platform for designing quantum hardware. You can request early access from November 2020 to March 2021.
About Qiskit
Qiskit is IBM’s software development kit. It touts itself to be modular, feature-rich, and more. Access to Qiskit can be found on its website.
