Build quantum software with Qisqit and IBM Q

Qiskit – open-source framework for quantum computing. It provides tools for creating and manipulating quantum programs. Qisqit runs them on prototype quantum devices on IBM Q Experience or on simulators on a local computer.

The four elements of Qiskit are Terra, Aer, Ignis, Aqua and for experiments on real systems – the 5th element IBM Q Provider

The workflow of using Qiskit consists of three high-level steps:

• Build: design a quantum circuit that represents the problem you are considering.
• Execute: run experiments on different backends (which include both systems and simulators).
• Analyze: calculate summary statistics and visualize the results of experiments.

Terra provides a bedrock for composing quantum programs at the level of circuits and pulses. Terra defines the interfaces for a desirable end-user experience, as well as the efficient handling of layers of optimization, pulse scheduling and backend communication.

Aer provides a high performance simulator framework for quantum circuits using the Qiskit software stack. It contains optimized C++ simulator backends for executing circuits compiled in Terra. Aer also provides tools for constructing highly configurable noise models for performing realistic noisy simulations of the errors that occur during execution on real devices.

Ignis is dedicated to fighting noise and errors and to forging a new path. This includes better characterization of errors, improving gates, and computing in the presence of noise. Ignis provides code for users to easily generate circuits for specific experiments given a minimal set of user input parameters.

Aqua is where algorithms for quantum computers are built. These algorithms can be used to build applications for quantum computing. Aqua is accessible to domain experts in chemistry, optimization, finance and AI, who want to explore the benefits of using quantum computers as accelerators for specific computational tasks.

The primary version of Qiskit uses the Python programming language. Versions for Swift and JavaScript  are also available, though the development for these versions have halted. These are used to create quantum programs based on the OpenQASM representation of quantum circuits.IBM Quantum offers several real quantum computers and high-performance classical computing simulators through its IBM Quantum Experience with Qiskit.