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Qiskit Runtime client release notes

0.32.0 (2024-10-30)

New Features

  • Added draw_execution_spans(), a function for creating a Plotly figure that visualizes one or more ExecutionSpans objects. Also added the convenience method draw() to invoke the drawing function on a particular instance. (1923)

    from qiskit_ibm_runtime.visualization import draw_execution_spans
 
# use the drawing function on spans from sampler job data
spans1 = sampler_job1.result().metadata["execution"]["execution_spans"]
spans2 = sampler_job2.result().metadata["execution"]["execution_spans"]
draw_execution_spans(spans1, spans2)
 
# convenience to plot just spans1
spans1.draw()

  • Added a new method, backend.refresh() that refreshes the current backend target with the latest updates from the server. (1955)

  • Added DoubleSliceSpan, an ExecutionSpan for batching with two slices. (1982)

  • Each of SamplerV2, EstimatorV2, and noise_learner.NoiseLearner now has a backend() method that returns the backend that the class is configured with. (1995)

Other Notes

  • Deprecations from the 0.25.0 release have been removed.

    • optimization_level is no longer a valid option for EstimatorV2.
    • Job methods interim_results() and stream_results() have been removed. (1965)

  • The channel_strategy parameter in QiskitRuntimeService has been removed. To continue using Q-CTRL in your workflow, please explore the following options:

0.31.0 (2024-10-15)

New Features

  • Added Noisy Estimator Analyzer Tool (NEAT), a class to help understand the expected performance of Estimator jobs. (1950)
  • Updated the ISA check to validate that the rzz angle is between [0, pi/2]. (1953)

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed an issue with ISA validation where a change related to connectivity inside control operations was not applied correctly. (1954)

Other Notes

  • Fake V1 backends have been removed. (1946)

0.30.0 (2024-09-23)

Deprecation Notes

  • The utilityy function get_runtime_api_base_url has been deprecated. Use default_runtime_url_resolver instead. (1914)

  • The channel_strategy parameter has been deprecated. The Q-CTRL Performance Management strategy will be removed on October 18th, 2024. To continue using Q-CTRL in your workflow, please explore the following options:

  • In a future release, RuntimeJob.status() will be returned as a string instead of an instance of JobStatus. (1933)

New Features

  • Added new methods Session.usage(), Batch.usage(), and Job.usage() that all return information regarding job and session usage. Please find more information here. (1827)

  • Added ConvertISAToClifford transpilation pass to convert the gates of a circuit to Clifford gates. (1887)

  • Added url_resolver optional input to QiskitRuntimeService constructor to enable custom generation of the Qiskit Runtime API URL based on the provided url, instance and private_endpoint. If not specified, the default resolver will be used.

    # Define a custom resolver. In this case returns the concatenation of the provided `url` and the `instance`
def custom_url_resolver(url, instance, *args, **kwargs):
  return f"{url}/{instance}"
 
service = QiskitRuntimeService(channel="ibm_quantum", instance="ibm-q/open/main", url="https://baseurl.org" url_resolver=custom_url_resolver)
# resulting resolved url will be: `https://baseurl.org/ibm-q/open/main`

  • Added utility function default_runtime_url_resolver. (1914)

  • The use_fractional_gates flag for QiskitRuntimeService.backend() and QiskitRuntimeService.backends() can now be None. When set to None, no instruction filtering is done, and the returned backend target may contain both fractional gates and control flow operations. (1938)

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a bug where primitives could not be run in the session context with fractional gates. (1922)

Other Notes

  • Deprecations from the 0.24.0 release have been removed. The following changes have beend made.

    • The arguments backend and session for Sampler and Estimator have been removed and replaced with “mode”
    • The primitive Session property has been replaced with mode
    • Specifying options without the full dictionary structure is no longer supported
    • Job.program_id() has been replaced with Job.primitive_id()
    • Service.run() and Session.run() have been replaced with a private method, _run()
    • In Service.backend(), “name” is now a required parameter
    • Service.get_backend() has been removed and replaced with backend() (1907)

0.29.1 (2024-09-17)

New Features

  • Added logic to encode and decode NoiseLearnerResult. (1908)

0.29.0 (2024-09-04)

Deprecation Notes

  • The simulator option noise_model is now deprecated for jobs running on real devices. noise_model will still be an acceptable option when using the local testing mode. (1892)

New Features

  • We added new classes, ExecutionSpan and ExecutionSpanSet. These classes are used in the primitive result metadata, to convey information about start and stop times of batch jobs. (1833)
  • Added a new private option under EnvironmentOptions. (1888)
  • Added fallback option to ZNE extrapolators. (1902)

Bug Fixes

  • Ported the Noise_model.from_dict() method from qiskit-aer because it was removed in 0.15.0. (1890)
  • Revert a previous change to backend.target where the target was no longer being cached. (1891)
  • Fixed an issue where Session.from_id() would create a new empty session. (1896)

0.28.0 (2024-08-15)

New Features

  • ResilienceOptionsV2 has a new field layer_noise_model. When this field is set, all the mitigation strategies that require noise data skip the noise learning stage, and instead gather the required information from layer_noise_model. (1858)

Other Notes

  • The V1 Primitives SamplerV1 and EstimatorV1 have been completely removed. Please see the migration guide and use the V2 Primitives instead. (1857)
  • The service parameter is now required in Session.from_id(). (1868)

0.27.1 (2024-08-12)

New Features

  • Added logic to encode and decode PauliLindbladError and LayerError. (1853)

0.27.0 (2024-08-08)

New Features

  • Added PauliLindbladError and LayerError classes to represent layers noise processes. (1844)

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed an issue with using the aer simulator and local service mode with sessions. (1838)

0.26.0 (2024-07-31)

Deprecation Notes

  • Passing in a backend as a string into Session, Batch, EstimatorV2, and SamplerV2 has been deprecated. Use the actual backend object instead. (1804)
  • Passing a backend as the mode in SamplerV2 and EstimatorV2 currently runs a job in job mode even if inside of a Session or Batch context manager. This behavior is deprecated and in a future release the the Session/Batch will take precedence. (1816)
  • Passing in service in Session, Batch has been deprecated. The service parameter is no longer necessary because the service can be extracted from the backend. (1826)
  • Since backend modules from qiskit.providers.models including BackendProperties and BackendConfiguration are deprecated in Qiskit 1.2, they have been copied into qiskit-ibm-runtime. Make sure to upgrade to the latest version, 0.26.0, to use these classes. (1803)

New Features

  • The methods properties, defaults, configuration, and check_faulty have been added to FakeBackendV2. (1765)

  • If jobs are run in a session created with QiskitRuntimeService.Session.from_id() where the session is already closed, the jobs are rejected immediately. (1780)

  • The input parameters for jobs will no longer be cached. These parameters can include large circuits and should not be automatically kept in memory. (1783)

  • QiskitRuntimeLocalService was created to support a local testing mode. To avoid having to initialize a separate class, “local” has been added as a valid QiskitRuntimeService channel.

    service = QiskitRuntimeService(channel="local")

    will return a QiskitRuntimeLocalService instance. (1793)

  • When running jobs on the open plan, there will now be a warning if the limit for the maximum number of pending jobs has been reached. The service will also attempt to wait for the oldest pending jobs to finish running before submitting a new job. (1794)

  • Added NoiseLearner and related functionality, such as NoiseLearnerOptions and NoiseLearnerResults. (1805)

Bug Fixes

  • Every circuit is checked to be ISA compliant. As part of this check, an error is raised if instructions that are not supported by the backend are detected. Previously, a bug caused some of the instructions to be skipped (those that reside inside bodies of control flow operations). We have fixed the bug in this release. (1784)
  • Fixed an issue where calling IBMBackend.target_history() would cache the backend target and then calling IBMBackend.target() would incorrectly return that cached target. (1791)
  • The options validation for checking if zne_mitigation or pec_mitigation are set to True when using other related options has been removed. (1792)
  • Fixed an issue where users were unable to retrieve job results if the python library simplejson was installed in their environment. (1800)

0.25.0 (2024-07-02)

Deprecation Notes

  • The optimization_level option in EstimatorV2 is deprecated. Instead, you can perform circuit optimization using the Qiskit transpiler or Qiskit transpiler service. (1748)
  • qiskit_ibm_runtime.RuntimeJobV2.interim_results(), qiskit_ibm_runtime.RuntimeJobV2.stream_results(), qiskit_ibm_runtime.RuntimeJob.interim_results(), and qiskit_ibm_runtime.RuntimeJob.stream_results() are now all deprecated. (1776)

New Features

  • Added backend, backends, and least_busy methods to QiskitRuntimeLocalService. (1764)
  • Added an instance property to BaseRuntimeJob which returns the instance where the job was run. (1771)
  • default_shots are now a supported option when using EstimatorV2 in local testing mode. (1773)

0.24.1 (2024-06-18)

Bug Fixes

  • Disallowing fractional gates by default, so backend target would not exclude control flow. (1755)

0.24.0 (2024-06-10)

Deprecation Notes

  • name will now be a required parameter in backend(). backend() will no longer return the first backend out of all backends if name is not provided. (1147)

  • After the removal of custom programs, the following methods are being deprecated and renamed. qiskit_ibm_runtime.QiskitRuntimeService.run() is deprecated and will be replaced by a private method qiskit_ibm_runtime.QiskitRuntimeService._run().

    qiskit_ibm_runtime.Session.run() is deprecated and will be replaced by a private method qiskit_ibm_runtime.Session._run().

    qiskit_ibm_runtime.RuntimeJob.program_id() is deprecated and will be replaced by qiskit_ibm_runtime.RuntimeJob.primitive_id(). (1238)

  • The backend argument in Sampler and Estimator has been deprecated. Please use mode instead. The session argument in Sampler and Estimator has also been deprecated. Please use mode instead. (1556)

  • qiskit_ibm_runtime.QiskitRuntimeService.get_backend() is deprecated. Please qiskit_ibm_runtime.QiskitRuntimeService.backend() use instead. The V1 fake backends, FakeBackend, along with FakeProvider are also being deprecated in favor of the V2 fake backends and FakeProviderForBackendV2. (1689)

  • Specifying options without the full dictionary structure is deprecated. Instead, pass in a fully structured dictionary. For example, use {'environment': {'log_level': 'INFO'}} instead of {'log_level': 'INFO'}. (1731)

New Features

  • Related to the execution modes, Sampler and Estimator now include a mode argument. The mode parameter can be a Backend, Session, Batch, or None. As a result, the backend name has been deprecated, and will no longer be supported as a valid execution mode. (1556)

  • The ZneOptions.amplifier option was added, which can be one of these strings:

    • "gate_folding" (default) uses 2-qubit gate folding to amplify noise. If the noise factor requires amplifying only a subset of the gates, then these gates are chosen randomly.
    • "gate_folding_front" uses 2-qubit gate folding to amplify noise. If the noise factor requires amplifying only a subset of the gates, then these gates are selected from the front of the topologically ordered DAG circuit.
    • "gate_folding_back" uses 2-qubit gate folding to amplify noise. If the noise factor requires amplifying only a subset of the gates, then these gates are selected from the back of the topologically ordered DAG circuit. (1679)

  • When saving an account, there is a new parameter, private_endpoint that if set to True, allows users to connect to a private IBM Cloud API. This parameter can also be used when the service is initialized, for example: QiskitRuntimeService(private_endpoint = True). (1699)

  • New opt-in feature to support fractional gates is added to IBMBackend. IBM backends currently support dynamic circuits and fractional gates exclusively and the two features cannot be used in the same primitive job. In addition, some error mitigation protocols you can use with the estimator primitive, such as PEC or PEA, may not support gate twirling with the fractional gates. Since Qiskit Target model doesn’t represent such constraint, we adopted the opt-in approach, where your backend target includes only fractional gates (control flow instructions) when the backend is (not) opted. This feature is controlled when you retrieve the target backend from the QiskitRuntimeService.

    from qiskit_ibm_runtime import QiskitRuntimeService
 
backend = QiskitRuntimeService(channel="ibm_quantum").backends(
    "name_of_your_backend",
    use_fractional_gates=True,
)[0]

    When the fractional feature is enabled, transpiled circuits may have shorter depth compared with the conventional IBM basis gates, e.g. [sx, rz, ecr].

    When you use control flow instructions, e.g. if_else, in your circuit, you must disable the fractional gate feature to get executable ISA circuits. The choice of the instruction set is now responsibility of users.

    Note that this pattern may be modified or removed without deprecation when the IBM backends is updated in future development. (1715)

  • You can now use the experimental option in qiskit_ibm_runtime.options.EstimatorOptions to enable Probabilistic Error Amplification (PEA) error mitigation method for your estimator jobs. (1728)

  • Qiskit version 1.1 is now supported and required. (1700)

Upgrade Notes

  • QiskitRuntimeService.backends() now always returns a new IBMBackend instance even when the same query is used. The backend properties and defaults data are retrieved from the server for every instance when they are accessed for the first time, while the configuration data is cached internally in the service instance. (1732)

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed an issue where retrieving jobs with job() and jobs() would only return RuntimeJob instances, even if the job was run with a V2 primitive. Now, V2 primitive jobs will be returned correctly as RuntimeJobV2 instances. (1471)
  • To avoid network disruptions during long job processes, websocket errors will no longer be raised. (1518)
  • Fixed the combination of insert_multiple_cycles and coupling_map options in PadDynamicalDecoupling. This combination allows to select staggered dynamical decoupling with multiple sequence cycles in each delay that crosses the threshold set by sequence_min_length_ratios. (1630)
  • Fixed a serialization issue where decoding job metadata resulted in an error. (1682)
  • Fixed measurement twirling docstring which incorrectly indicated it’s enabled by default for Sampler. (1722)
  • Fixed nested experimental suboptions override non-experimental suboptions. (1731)
  • The backend utils method convert_to_target has been replaced with the convert_to_target method from Qiskit. This fixes some issues related to target generation and calibration data. (1600)

0.23.0 (2024-04-15)

Deprecation Notes

New Features

  • Printing Options and OptionsV2 will now be formatted as a table. (1490)
  • Add block_ordering_callable argument to BlockBasePadder, PadDynamicalDecoupling, PadDelay, and BaseDynamicCircuitAnalysis. This allows the user to construct blocks using an algorithm of their choosing. No assumptions or checks are made on the validity of the output that the block_ordering_callable produces. The motivation for this argument is that for some families of circuits, the existing function block_order_op_nodes can be very slow. (1531)
  • The Sampler and Estimator V2 Primitives have been enhanced to incorporate custom validation procedures when the channel_strategy property is set as “q-ctrl.” This customized validation logic effectively rectifies incorrect input options and safeguards users against inadvertently disabling Q-CTRL’s performance enhancements. (1550)
  • SamplerV2 now supports twirling. Twirling will only be applied to those measurement registers not involved within a conditional logic. (1557)
  • Session details() now includes a new field, usage_time. Usage is defined as the time a quantum system is committed to complete a job. (1567)

Bug Fixes

  • RuntimeJobV2 will no longer error when the API returns an unknown status. Instead, the status from the API will directly be returned. (1476)
  • Fixed a bug where custom headers were not being sent in the /jobs request. (1508)
  • Fixed a bug with encoding/decoding ParameterExpression. (1521)
  • Fixed an issue where the in_final_state() method in RuntimeJobV2 would not update the status when called. (1547)

0.22.0 (2024-03-21)

Upgrade Notes

  • Modify skip_reset_qubits optional flag to the constructor for PadDynamicalDecoupling. If False, dynamical decoupling is applied on qubits regardless of their state, even on delays that are at the beginning of a circuit. This option now matches the behavior in Qiskit. (1409)

New Features

  • A new local testing mode is added. It allows you to validate your quantum prorams before sending them to a physical system. The local testing mode is activated if one of the fake backends in qiskit_ibm_runtime.fake_provider or a Qiskit Aer backend instance is used when instantiating a primitive or a session. (1495)

Bug Fixes

  • Fix a bug that caused setting of resilience_level=0 in EstimatorV2 to be ignored (and the default value used instead). (1541)

0.21.2 (2024-03-18)

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a bug where RuntimeDecoder could import arbitrary classes. (1527)

0.21.1

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a bug where SamplerV1 and EstimatorV1 could not be imported because of an issue with how the aliases were defined.

0.21.0

Upgrade Notes

  • Circuits that do not match the target hardware definition are no longer supported by Qiskit Runtime primitives, unless channel_strategy="q-ctrl" is used. See the transpilation documentation (transpile) for instructions to transform circuits and the primitive examples (run/primitives-examples) to see this coupled with operator transformations.

Deprecation Notes

  • In a future release, backend will be a required parameter for qiskit_ibm_runtime.Sampler, and qiskit_ibm_runtime.Estimator if session is not specified, even when using the ibm_cloud channel.

    It will also be a required parameter for qiskit_ibm_runtime.Session and qiskit_ibm_runtime.Batch.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed an issue with the IBMBackend.target where it would incorrectly exclude supported control flow operations (IfElseOp, WhileLoop, etc.) if a given backend supported them.
  • Fixed a bug where retrieving a fake backend through FakeProviderForBackendV2.backend() would result in a type error.
  • Fixes the check for ISA circuits to allow pulse gates and circuits that don’t have layout.

0.20.0

New Features

  • Add dd_barrier optional input to PadDynamicalDecoupling constructor to identify portions of the circuit to apply dynamical decoupling (dd) on selectively. If this string is contained in the label of a barrier in the circuit, dd is applied on the delays ending with it (on the same qubits); otherwise, it is not applied.

  • Python 3.12 is now supported.

  • Sessions will now be started with a new /sessions endpoint that allows for different execution modes. Batch mode is now supported through Batch, and Session will work the same as way as before. Please see run/sessions for more information.

    Note that Session and Batch created from qiskit-ibm-runtime prior to this release will no longer be supported after March 31, 2024. Please update your qiskit-ibm-runtime version as soon as possible before this date.

    Also note that using simulators with sessions is no longer supported. Users can still start sessions with simulators without any issues but a session will not actually be created. There will be no session ID.

  • Sessions started with qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMBackend.open_session() will use the new /sessions endpoint.

    The sessions functionality will not change but note that backend.run() sessions prior to this release will no longer be supported after March 31, 2024. Please update your qiskit-ibm-runtime version as soon as possible before this date.

Deprecation Notes

  • Circuits that do not match the target hardware definition will no longer be supported after March 1, 2024. See the transpilation documentation (transpile) for instructions to transform circuits and the primitive examples (run/primitives-examples) to see this coupled with operator transformations.

Bug Fixes

  • Fix assignment of instruction durations when scheduling circuits with control flow. Prior to this fix, the indices for instructions on inner blocks were not mapped to the physical indices in the outer dag.

Other Notes

  • The InstructionDurations durations input is now also required for the constructor of PadDelay.

0.19.1

Upgrade Notes

  • Extend DynamicCircuitInstructions.from_backend() to extract and patch durations from both BackendV1 and BackendV2 objects. Also add DynamicCircuitInstructions.from_target() to use a Target object instead.

Bug Fixes

  • Fix the patching of DynamicCircuitInstructions for instructions with durations that are not in units of dt.
  • Fixed an issue with the qpy.dump() function, when the use_symengine flag was set to a truthy object that evaluated to True but was not actually the boolean True the generated QPY payload would be corrupt.

0.19.0

Upgrade Notes

  • qiskit-ibm-provider is pending deprecation, and therefore will no longer be a dependency for qiskit-ibm-runtime.
  • qiskit-ibm-runtime is now compatible with Qiskit versions >= 0.45, including 1.0.0.

0.18.0

New Features

  • Added a new parameter, dynamic_circuits to backends() to allow filtering of backends that support dynamic circuits.
  • Added max_time parameter to IBMBackend.open_session().
  • Added a method RuntimeJob.queue_info() to get the queue information from the backend. This feature was transferred from qiskit_ibm_provider.

Deprecation Notes

Bug Fixes

0.17.0

New Features

  • Added a new method properties() which returns the backend properties of the job at the time the job was run.
  • details() has a new field, activated_at, which is the timestamp of when the session was changed to active.

Bug Fixes

  • When a single backend is retrieved with the instance parameter,

    service.backend('ibm_torino', instance='ibm-q/open/main')
# raises error if torino is not in ibm-q/open/main but in a different instance
# the user has access to
service = QiskitRuntimeService(channel="ibm_quantum", instance="ibm-q/open/main")
service.backend('ibm_torino') # raises the same error

    if the backend is not in the instance but in a different one the user has access to, an error will be raised. The same error will now be raised if an instance is passed in at initialization and then a backend not in that instance is retrieved.

  • Fixed an issue where retrieving the coupling_map of some backends would result in a NameError.

0.16.0

Prelude

Sessions are now thread-safe and allow for multiple concurrent interactive experiments.

New Features

  • Sessions are now thread-safe.

Upgrade Notes

  • Methods related to using custom programs are removed.

Bug Fixes

  • If a cloud instance that is q-ctrl enabled is used while q-ctrl is not passed in as the channel_strategy, an error will be raised.

0.15.1

Bug Fixes

  • Reverting 0.15.0 changes to from_id() because it was a breaking change without proper deprecation.

0.15.0

New Features

  • A new module qiskit_ibm_runtime.fake_provider, has been added to provide access to a series of fake backends derived from snapshots of IBM Quantum devices. This functionality was originally provided by the qiskit.providers.fake_provider module, but will soon be deprecated in favor of qiskit_ibm_runtime.fake_provider.

    The snapshots provided by the fake backends are useful for local testing of the transpiler and performing local noisy simulations of the system before running on real devices. Here is an example of using a fake backend for transpilation and simulation:

    from qiskit import QuantumCircuit
from qiskit import transpile
from qiskit_ibm_runtime.fake_provider import FakeManilaV2
 
# Get a fake backend from the fake provider
backend = FakeManilaV2()
 
# Create a simple circuit
circuit = QuantumCircuit(3)
circuit.h(0)
circuit.cx(0,1)
circuit.cx(0,2)
circuit.measure_all()
 
# Transpile the ideal circuit to a circuit that can be directly executed by the backend
transpiled_circuit = transpile(circuit, backend)
 
# Run the transpiled circuit using the simulated fake backend
job = backend.run(transpiled_circuit)
counts = job.result().get_counts()

  • Added support for backend.run(). The functionality is similar to that in qiskit-ibm-provider.

  • An error will be raised during initialization if q-ctrl is passed in as the channel_strategy and the account instance does not have q-ctrl enabled.

  • Removed storing result in RuntimeJob._results. Instead retrieve results every time the results() method is called.

Deprecation Notes

  • Usage of the ~/.qiskit/qiskitrc.json file for account information has been deprecated. Use ~/.qiskit/qiskit-ibm.json instead.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed an issue where canceled and failed jobs would return an invalid result that resulted in a type error, preventing the actual error from being returned to the user.
  • A warning will be raised at initialization if the DE environment is being used since not all features are supported there.
  • The backend parameter in from_id() is being deprecated because sessions do not support multiple backends. Additionally, the service parameter is no longer optional.
  • The circuit_indices and observable_indices run inputs for Estimator and Sampler have been completely removed.

Other Notes

  • Added migration code for running backend.run in qiskit_ibm_runtime instead of in qiskit_ibm_provider.

0.14.0

New Features

  • There is a new class, qiskit_ibm_runtime.Batch that currently works the same way as qiskit_ibm_runtime.Session but will later be updated to better support submitting multiple jobs at once.
  • Arbitrary keys and values are no longer allowed in Options.

Deprecation Notes

0.13.0

New Features

  • Added a new method, details() that returns information about a session, including: maximum session time, active time remaining, the current state, and whether or not the session is accepting jobs.

    Also added status(), which returns the current status of the session.

  • At initialization, if not passed in directly, the default instance selected by the provider will be logged at the “INFO” level. When running a job, if the backend selected is not in the default instance but in a different instance the user also has access to, that instance will also be logged.

Upgrade Notes

  • qiskit_ibm_runtime.Session.close() has been updated to mark a Session as no longer accepting new jobs. The session won’t accept more jobs but it will continue to run any queued jobs until they are done or the max time expires. This will also happen automatically when the session context manager is exited. When a session that is not accepting jobs has run out of jobs to run, it’s immediately closed, freeing up the backend to run more jobs rather than wait for the interactive timeout.

    The old close method behavior has been moved to a new method, qiskit_ibm_runtime.Session.cancel(), where all queued jobs within a session are cancelled and terminated.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a bug where shots passed in as a numpy type were not being serialized correctly.
  • Fixed a bug in target_history() where the datetime parameter was not being used to retrieve backend properties from the specified date.

0.12.2

New Features

  • If using a channel_strategy, only backends that support that channel_strategy will be accessible to the user.
  • Added the option to define a default account in the account json file. To select an account as default, define set_as_default=True in QiskitRuntimeService.save_account().
  • Added new method Session.from_id which creates a new session with a given id.
  • There will now be a warning if a user submits a job that is predicted to exceed their system execution time monthly quota of 10 minutes. This only applies to jobs run on real hardware in the instance ibm-q/open/main. If the job does end up exceeding the quota, it will be canceled.

Upgrade Notes

  • Job error messages now include the error code. Error codes can be found in errors.

0.12.1

New Features

  • Users can use a new environment variable, USAGE_DATA_OPT_OUT to opt out of user module usage tracking by setting this value to True. Additionally, only certain qiskit modules will be tracked instead of all modules that begin with qiskit or qiskit_.
  • Users can now pass in a value of default to the channel_strategy parameter in qiskit_ibm_runtime.QiskitRuntimeService. Now, if an account is configured with a certain channel strategy, the user can override it by passing in default.
  • The Sampler and Estimator primitives have been enhanced to incorporate custom validation procedures when the channel_strategy property within the :class:qiskit_ibm_runtime.QiskitRuntimeService is configured as “q-ctrl.” This customized validation logic effectively rectifies incorrect input options and safeguards users against inadvertently disabling Q-CTRL’s performance enhancements.

Bug Fixes

  • Retrieving backend properties with properties() now supports passing a datetime parameter to retrieve properties from a past date.
  • The noise_factors and extrapolator options in qiskit_ibm_runtime.options.ResilienceOptions will now default to None unless resilience_level is set to 2. Only options relevant to the resilience level will be set, so when using resilience_level 2, noise_factors will still default to (1, 3, 5) and extrapolator will default to LinearExtrapolator. Additionally, options with a value of None will no longer be sent to the server.
  • Job error messages will no longer be returned in all uppercase.
  • The max_execution_time option is now based on system execution time instead of wall clock time. System execution time is the amount of time that the system is dedicated to processing your job. If a job exceeds this time limit, it is forcibly cancelled. Simulator jobs continue to use wall clock time.

0.12.0

New Features

  • Added a global_service, so that if the user defines a QiskitRuntimeService, it will be used by the primitives, even if the service is not passed to them explicitly. For example:

    from qiskit_ibm_runtime import QiskitRuntimeService, Sampler
service = QiskitRuntimeService(channel="ibm_quantum")
# Sampler._service field will be initialized to ``service``
sampler = Sampler(backend="ibmq_qasm_simulator")

  • Added a new method, qiskit_ibm_runtime.QiskitRuntimeService.instances() that returns all instances(hub/group/project) the user is in. This is only for the ibm_quantum channel since the ibm_cloud channel does not have multiple instances.

  • Added validations for options on the second level of the dict, i.e., for each of resilience, simulator, execution, and transpilation, check that their options are supported. Otherwise throw an exception.

  • There is a new parameter, channel_strategy that can be set in the initialization of qiskit_ibm_runtime.QiskitRuntimeService or saved in qiskit_ibm_runtime.QiskitRuntimeService.save_account(). If channel_strategy is set to q-ctrl, all jobs within the service will use the Q-CTRL error mitigation strategy.

Upgrade Notes

Deprecation Notes

Bug Fixes

  • When running on channel “ibm_cloud”, it is possible not to specify the backend. In this case, the system selects one of the available backends for this service. Issue #625 https://github.com/Qiskit/qiskit-ibm-runtime/issues/625 reported that the the backend returned by job.backend() was not always the actual backend on which the job was run. This PR fixes this bug.
  • Fixes a race condition in the test test_cancel_running_job() in test_job.py where job cancellation could not be performed. Refer to #1019 <https://github.com/Qiskit/qiskit-ibm-runtime/issues/1019>_ for more details.
  • Previously we added validation when jobs were run to make sure the number of circuits was not greater than the maximum for that backend, backend.max_circuits. This limit isn’t actually necessary for primtives run from within a session.

0.11.3

New Features

  • Added reason for failure when invoking the method error_message().
  • Added a new property, usage_estimation() that returns the estimated system execution time, quantum_seconds. System execution time represents the amount of time that the system is dedicated to processing your job.
  • Raise an exception if the number of circuits passed to _run_primitive() exceeds the number of circuits supported on the backend.
  • There is a new method update_tags() that can be used to update the job_tags of a job.
  • If instance is provided as parameter to qiskit_ibm_runtime.QiskitRuntimeService, then this is used as a filter in QiskitRuntimeService.backends(). If instance is not recognized as one of the provider instances, an exception will be raised. Previously, we only issued a warning.

0.11.2

New Features

  • If a job has been cancelled, and job.result() is requested, throw an exception rather than returning None.

  • A new method, qiskit_ibm_runtime.options.SimulatorOptions.set_backend(), allows users to more easily set simulator options for a backend.

    from qiskit.providers.fake_provider import FakeManila
from qiskit_aer.noise import NoiseModel
 
# Make a noise model
fake_backend = FakeManila()
 
# Set options to include the noise model
options = Options()
options.simulator.set_backend(fake_backend)
options.simulator.seed_simulator = 42

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed infinite recursion when attempting to deepcopy an IBMBackend. Added a method qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMBackend.deepcopy().
  • Fixed an issue where circuit metadata was not being serialized correctly resulting in a type error.

0.11.1

Deprecation Notes

0.11.0

New Features

  • When retrieving a job with qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMRuntimeService.job() the params will no longer be returned from the API. They will instead be loaded loazily when they are actually needed in qiskit_ibm_runtime.RuntimeJob.inputs().

  • Added warning when the backend is not active in QiskitRuntimeService.run.

  • Support input of type CouplingMap when given as simulator option. Previously we supported, for example:

    options.simulator = {"coupling_map": [[0, 1], [1, 0]]}

    Now we also support the following:

    options.simulator = {"coupling_map": CouplingMap.from_line(10)}

Upgrade Notes

Deprecation Notes

  • Passing a backend name or backend instance to the session parameter when initializing a qiskit_ibm_runtime.Sampler or qiskit_ibm_runtime.Estimator has been deprecated. Please use the backend parameter instead. You can continue to pass a session using the session parameter.

0.10.0

New Features

  • Python 3.11 is now supported.

Upgrade Notes

  • Added error messages in case the user defines unsupported values for ‘max_execution_time’. Previously, this validation was done on the server side.

Bug Fixes

  • Added deserialization of the params of RuntimeJob.inputs. Previously, the circuits were returned in serialized format. Fixes issue #829.
  • Allow for users to retrieve all backends even if one of the backends has a missing configuration. The backend without a configuration will not be returned.

0.9.4

New Features

  • Added methods to validate input options to transpilation and environment options.

Upgrade Notes

  • When constructing a backend qiskit.transpiler.Target, faulty qubits and gates from the backend configuration will be filtered out.

Deprecation Notes

  • The deprecated arguments circuits, parameters, service, and skip_transpilation have been removed from Sampler.

    Similarly, the deprecated arguments circuits, observables, parameters, service, and skip_transpilation have been removed from Estimator.

    In QiskitRuntimeService, the auth parameter has been removed. Additionally, the instance, job_tags, and max_execution_time paramters have been removed from qiskit_ibm_runtime.QiskitRuntimeService.run(). They can be passed in through RuntimeOptions instead.

    Within RuntimeOptions, backend_name is no longer supported. Please use backend instead.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a bug where retrieving a job from a backend without noise_model or seed_simulator options would result in a key error.

0.9.3

Upgrade Notes

  • Added error messages in case the user defines unsupported values for ‘optimization_level’ or for ‘resilience_level’. Added validation checking for options given as input to resilience. Previously, this validation was done on the server side. By adding them on the client side, response will be much faster upon failure. The environment variable QISKIT_RUNTIME_SKIP_OPTIONS_VALIDATION is used to control validation. If set, validation will be skipped.
  • Backend configurations are no longer loaded when QiskitRuntimeService is initialized. Instead, the configuration is only loaded and cached during get_backend() and backends().

Bug Fixes

  • When creating an Option object and passing an input option to resilience_options, this option was included in resilience_options, but the other, default options were removed. This was fixed, so now inputs are handled correctly, like other option types.

0.9.2

New Features

  • Added a new argument called session_time to the program_run method and qiskit_ibm_runtime.RuntimeOptions. Now values entered by the user for session max_time will be sent to the server side as session_time. This allows users to specify different values for session max_time and max_execution_time.
  • Added the method target_history(). This method is similar to target(). The difference is that the new method enables the user to pass a datetime parameter, to retrieve historical data from the backend.

Upgrade Notes

  • Accept all options on given on level 1 and assign them to the appropriate hierarchical option type. For example, if the user provides options = {"shots": 10} as input to Sampler/Estimator, this will be interpreted as options = {"execution: {"shots": 10}}.
  • If a job is returned without a backend, retrieving the backend through qiskit_ibm_runtime.RuntimeJob.backend() will re-retrieve data from the server and attempt to update the backend. Additionally, job_id and backend, which were deprecated attributes of qiskit_ibm_runtime.RuntimeJob have now been removed.
  • Added a user warning when the user passes an option that is not supported in Options.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a bug where the default values for optimization_level and for resilience_level were not being set correctly.
  • Fixed an issue where if no backend was selected, optimization_level and resilience_level would default to None, causing the job to fail.
  • If an instance is passed in to qiskit_ibm_runtime.QiskitRuntimeService.get_backend() and then the backend is used in a session, all jobs within the session will be run from the original instance passed in.
  • Removed additional decomposition of BlueprintCircuits in the JSON encoder. This was introduced as a bugfix, but has since been fixed. Still doing the decomposition led to possible problems if the decomposed circuit was not in the correct basis set of the backend anymore.

0.9.1

Upgrade Notes

  • qiskit_ibm_runtime.QiskitRuntimeService.jobs() now has a backend_name parameter that can be used to only return jobs run with the specified backend.

  • Allow the user to store account details in a file specified by the user in the parameter. filename. The default remains ~/.qiskit/qiskit-ibm.json. Example of usage: Ex:

    QiskitRuntimeService.save_account(channel="ibm_quantum",
                                  filename="~/my_account_file.json",
                                  name = "my_account",
                                  token="my_token")
service = QiskitRuntimeService(channel="ibm_quantum",
                               filename="~/my_account_file.json",
                               name = "my_account",)

Deprecation Notes

  • backend is no longer a supported option when using qiskit_ibm_runtime.Session.run(). Sessions do not support multiple cross backends. Additionally, an exception will be raised if a backend passed in through options does not match the original session backend in an active session.

Bug Fixes

  • ECRGate and CZGate mappings have been added to the Target constructor to fix a tranpile bug.

Other Notes

  • Since error messages from a failing job may be long, we shortened them so that they begin from the last Traceback in the message.

0.9.0

Upgrade Notes

  • Changed the default values for optimization_level and for resilience_level in qiskit_ibm_runtime.Options. If their values are defined by the user, they are not modified. If not set, if the backend is a noiseless simulator then optimization_level is set to 1 and resilience_level is set to 0; Otherwise, they are be set to 3 and 1 respectively.
  • session_id() and tags() were added for an easy way to return the session_id and job_tags of a job.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a bug where jobs that did not run before a session closes are not actually run as a part of that session. Jobs should run as a part of a session even if that session is closed by the exit of the context manager.
  • Fixes the issue wherein submitting a large job fails due to write operation timeout.

0.8.0

New Features

Upgrade Notes

  • The default resilience_level option for has been changed from 0 to 1. In addition, the default optimization_level option has been changed from 1 to 3.

Deprecation Notes

  • The transpilation options translation_method and timing_constraints have been deprecated.

Bug Fixes

0.7.0

New Features

  • qiskit_ibm_runtime.Options class now accepts arbitrary keyword arguments. This allows users to specify new options to the primitive programs without upgrading qiskit_ibm_runtime. These arbitrary keyword arguments, however, are not validated.
  • The qiskit_ibm_runtime.options.EnvironmentOptions class now accepts a callback parameter. This parameter can be used to stream the interim and final results of the primitives.
  • The qiskit_ibm_runtime.Options class now accepts max_execution_time as a first level option and job_tags as an option under environment. qiskit_ibm_runtime.RuntimeOptions has also been updated to include these two parameters.

Upgrade Notes

  • This version of qiskit-ibm-runtime requires qiskit-terra version 0.22 or higher. The requirements.txt file has been updated accordingly.

Deprecation Notes

  • Qiskit Runtime programs torch-train, torch-infer, sample-expval, sample-program, and quantum_kernal_alignment have been deprecated due to low usage.
  • Passing instance parameter to the qiskit_ibm_runtime.QiskitRuntimeService.run() has been deprecated. Instead, you can pass the instance parameter inside the options parameter.
  • Passing job_tags and max_execution_time as parameters to qiskit_ibm_runtime.QiskitRuntimeService has been deprecated. Please pass them inside options.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixes the missing section on retrieving jobs in the how-to guide.

0.7.0rc2

Upgrade Notes

  • Added a validation check to run(). It raises an error if there is no classical bit.
  • Sampler is updated to return SamplerResult with SamplerResult.quasi_dists as a list of QuasiDistrbution. It used to set a list of dict as SamplerResult.quasi_dists, but it did not follow the design of SamplerResult.
  • The RuntimeJob class is now a subclass of qiskit.providers.Job.

Deprecation Notes

0.7.0rc1

Prelude

There are significant changes to how primitives are invoked within a session, and the options available to the primitives. Please review the rest of the release notes and the tutorials for full information.

New Features

  • You can now invoke the same or different primitive programs multiple times within a session. For example:

    from qiskit_ibm_runtime import QiskitRuntimeService, Session, Sampler, Estimator, Options
from qiskit.test.reference_circuits import ReferenceCircuits
from qiskit.circuit.library import RealAmplitudes
from qiskit.quantum_info import SparsePauliOp
 
# Initialize account.
service = QiskitRuntimeService()
 
# Set options, which can be overwritten at job level.
options = Options(optimization_level=1)
 
# Prepare inputs.
bell = ReferenceCircuits.bell()
psi = RealAmplitudes(num_qubits=2, reps=2)
H1 = SparsePauliOp.from_list([("II", 1), ("IZ", 2), ("XI", 3)])
theta = [0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5]
 
with Session(service=service, backend="ibmq_qasm_simulator") as session:
    # Submit a request to the Sampler primitive within the session.
    sampler = Sampler(session=session, options=options)
    job = sampler.run(circuits=bell)
    print(f"Sampler results: {job.result()}")
 
    # Submit a request to the Estimator primitive within the session.
    estimator = Estimator(session=session, options=options)
    job = estimator.run(
        circuits=[psi], observables=[H1], parameter_values=[theta]
    )
    print(f"Estimator results: {job.result()}")

  • A new qiskit_ibm_runtime.Options class is introduced. This class allows you to auto-complete options related to primitive programs. For example:

    from qiskit_ibm_runtime import Session, Sampler, Options
from qiskit.test.reference_circuits import ReferenceCircuits
 
options = Options()
options.optimization_level = 3  # This can be done using auto-complete.
 
with Session(backend="ibmq_qasm_simulator") as session:
  # Pass the options to Sampler.
  sampler = Sampler(session=session, options=options)
 
  # Or at job level.
  job = sampler.run(circuits=ReferenceCircuits.bell(), shots=4000)

  • qiskit_ibm_runtime.RuntimeJob has a new method metrics(). This method returns the metrics of a job, which includes timestamp information.

  • The qiskit_ibm_runtime.QiskitRuntimeService channel can now be stored as an environment variable, QISKIT_IBM_CHANNEL. This way, when using Runtime Primitives, the service does not have to be instantiated manually and can instead be created directly from environment variables.

Upgrade Notes

  • Raise RuntimeJobMaxTimeoutError when a job runs for too long so that it can be handled appropriately by programs.

  • The experimental parameters transpilation_settings, resilience_settings, and max_time to the :class:`qiskit_ibm_runtime.Sampler and qiskit_ibm_runtime.Estimator constructors have been removed. You can instead use the qiskit_ibm_runtime.Options class to specify the settings, and max_time can be specified when starting a new session. For example:

    from qiskit_ibm_runtime import Session, Sampler, Options
 
options = Options()
# This can be done using auto-complete.
option.optimization_level = 3
options.resilience_level = 1
 
with Session(max_time="2h") as session:
  # Pass the options to Sampler.
  sampler = Sampler(session=session, options=options)

  • Since some accounts have many runtime programs, caching a list of all programs on the first call of programs() has been removed. Instead, programs will only be cached up to the limit given, which has a default value of 20.

Deprecation Notes

  • Invoking qiskit_ibm_runtime.Sampler and qiskit_ibm_runtime.Estimator as context managers has been deprecated. You can instead use the qiskit_ibm_runtime.Session class to create a new session and invoke one or more primitives within the session.

    As a result, passing input parameters, such as circuits, observables, and parameter_values, as well as service to the constructors of Sampler and Estimator has also been deprecated. The inputs can now be passed to the run() method of the primitive classes, and service can be passed to qiskit_ibm_runtime.Session when starting a new session.

  • Passing skip_transpilation to the :class:`qiskit_ibm_runtime.Sampler and qiskit_ibm_runtime.Estimator constructors has been deprecated. You can instead use the qiskit_ibm_runtime.Options class to specify this option. For example:

    from qiskit_ibm_runtime import Options
 
options = Options()
# This can be done using auto-complete.
options.transpilation.skip_transpilation = True

Bug Fixes

  • Fixes issue #428 by raising the minimum required qiskit-terra version to 0.21.0, since latest version of qiskit-ibm-runtime is not compatible with 0.20.0 or earlier of qiskit-terra.

0.6.0

Upgrade Notes

  • When migrating from qiskit-ibmq-provider your ibm_quantum channel credentials will get automatically copied over from the qiskitrc file and a qiskit-ibm.json file will get created if one doesn’t exist. You have to just initialize QiskitRuntimeService class without passing any parameters to use this copied over default ibm_quantum account.

    Ex:

    from qiskit_ibm_runtime import QiskitRuntimeService
service = QiskitRuntimeService()

  • IBMEstimator class which was deprecated earlier is now removed. Use Estimator class going forward.

  • IBMRuntimeService class which was deprecated earlier is now removed. Use QiskitRuntimeService class going forward.

0.5.0

Prelude

This release leverages the API and Queue enhancements to become more runtime session aware. As a result when using the primitives (sampler and estimator), runtime jobs in the same session will skip to the front of the queue, thereby speeding up the runtime session, once it has started.

New Features

  • The service object which is an instance of QiskitRuntimeService class can now be accessed from IBMBackend class using the service property.

    Ex:

    backend = service.get_backend("ibmq_qasm_simulator")
backend.service  # QiskitRuntimeService instance used to instantiate the backend

Upgrade Notes

  • jobs() has two new parameters, created_after and created_before. These can be used to filter jobs by creation date in local time.

  • The parameters circuit_indices and observable_indices when calling estimator are now deprecated and will be removed in a future release. You can now pass either indices or objects using the circuits and observables parameters.

    Ex:

    with Estimator(
  circuits=[qc1, qc2],
  observables=[H1, H2, H3],
  service=service,
  options=options
) as estimator:
  # pass circuits and observables as indices
  result = estimator(circuits=[0, 1], observables=[0, 1], parameter_values=[theta1, theta2])
 
  # pass circuits and observables as objects
  result = estimator(circuits=[qc1, qc2], observables=[H1, H3], parameter_values=[theta1, theta3])

  • The parameters circuit_indices and observable_indices when calling estimator are now deprecated and will be removed in a future release. You can now pass either indices or objects using the circuits and observables parameters.

    Ex:

    with Sampler(
  circuits=[qc1, qc2],
  service=service,
  options=options
) as sampler:
  # pass circuits as indices
  result = sampler(circuits=[0, 1], parameter_values=[theta1, theta2])
 
  # pass circuit as objects
  result = sampler(circuits=[qc1, qc2], parameter_values=[theta2, theta3])

  • The session_id, which is the Job ID of the first job in a runtime session can now be used as a filter in jobs() with the parameter session_id.

  • run() now supports a new parameter, job_tags. These tags can be used when filtering jobs with jobs().

  • run() now supports a new parameter, max_execution_time, which can be used to override the default program maximum execution time. It should be less than or equal to the program maximum execution time.

  • jobs() has a new parameter, descending. This parameter defaults to True, where jobs will be returned in descending order based on creation date.

  • RuntimeJobTimeoutError is now raised when the timeout set in result() or wait_for_final_state() expires.

  • When initializing QiskitRuntimeService and an invalid token is used, IBMNotAuthorizedError will be raised instead of RequestsApiError.

  • IBMSampler class which was deprecated earlier is now removed. Use Sampler class going forward.

  • qubit_properties() will now return a sub class of QubitProperties called IBMQubitProperties and will expose anharmonicity in addition to the t1, t2 and frequency already exposed by the QubitProperties class.

0.4.0

Upgrade Notes

  • IBMRuntimeService has been renamed to QiskitRuntimeSerice. IBMRuntimeService class is now deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

    Example:

    Before:

    from qiskit_ibm_runtime import IBMRuntimeService
service = IBMRuntimeService(channel="ibm_cloud", token="...", instance="...")

    After:

    from qiskit_ibm_runtime import QiskitRuntimeService
service = QiskitRuntimeService(channel="ibm_cloud", token="...", instance="...")

  • IBMEstimator class is now deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Use Estimator class going forward.

    Example:

    Before:

    from qiskit_ibm_runtime import IBMRuntimeService, IBMEstimator
service = IBMRuntimeService(channel="ibm_cloud", token="...", instance="...")
 
estimator_factory = IBMEstimator(service=service, backend="ibmq_qasm_simulator")
 
with estimator_factory(circuits=[qc], observables="...", parameters="...") as estimator:
    result = estimator(circuit_indices=[0], ...)

    After:

    from qiskit_ibm_runtime import QiskitRuntimeService, Estimator
service = QiskitRuntimeService(channel="ibm_cloud", token="...", instance="...")
 
with Estimator(
  circuits=[qc],
  observables="...",
  parameters="...",
  service=service,
  options={ "backend": "ibmq_qasm_simulator" },  # or IBMBackend<"ibmq_qasm_simulator">
) as estimator:
    result = estimator(circuit_indices=[0], ...)

  • IBMSampler class is now deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Use Sampler class going forward.

    Example:

    Before:

    from qiskit_ibm_runtime import IBMRuntimeService, IBMSampler
service = IBMRuntimeService(channel="ibm_cloud", token="...", instance="...")
 
sampler_factory = IBMSampler(service=service, backend="ibmq_qasm_simulator")
 
with sampler_factory(circuits=[qc], parameters="...") as sampler:
    result = sampler(circuit_indices=[0], ...)

    After:

    from qiskit_ibm_runtime import QiskitRuntimeService, Sampler
service = QiskitRuntimeService(channel="ibm_cloud", token="...", instance="...")
 
with Sampler(
  circuits=[qc],
  parameters="...",
  service=service,
  options={ "backend": "ibmq_qasm_simulator" },  # or IBMBackend<"ibmq_qasm_simulator">
) as sampler:
    result = sampler(circuit_indices=[0], ...)

Deprecation Notes

  • IBMRuntimeService, IBMEstimator and IBMSampler classes have been deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Use QiskitRuntimeService, Estimator and Sampler classes instead. See upgrade notes section for a detailed explanation with examples.

0.3.0

Upgrade Notes

  • A new parameter channel has now been added to qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMRuntimeService class and also to methods like save_account(), saved_accounts() and delete_account(). It can be set to ibm_quantum or ibm_cloud to authenticate to either of the two different channels through which Qiskit Runtime service is currently offered. channel replaces the auth parameter which has now been deprecated.

Deprecation Notes

  • The auth parameter to qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMRuntimeService class and also to methods like save_account(), saved_accounts() and delete_account() has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Please use the new channel parameter instead.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed #291 where passing a single QuantumCircuit to sampler or estimator primitives was throwing an error.

0.2.0

New Features

  • qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMEstimator and qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMSampler classes now allow you to easily interact with the estimator and sampler primitive programs. Refer to the examples in the respective class doc strings to learn more about how to use them.

Bug Fixes

0.1.0

Prelude

qiskit-ibm-runtime is a new Python API client for accessing the quantum programs, systems and simulators at IBM Quantum via the Qiskit Runtime Service.

This new package is built upon the work already done in qiskit.providers.ibmq.runtime module in the qiskit-ibmq-provider package and replaces it going forward. The runtime module in qiskit-ibmq-provider package is now deprecated.

qiskit-ibm-runtime is not included as part of Qiskit meta package and thereby you have to install it separately using pip install qiskit-ibm-runtime.

New Features

  • qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMRuntimeService.least_busy() will now allow you find the least busy backend.

Upgrade Notes

  • qiskit-ibm-runtime package no longer uses the $HOME/.qiskit/qiskitrc file used by qiskit-ibmq-provider to save credentials. Credentials are now stored in a JSON format in $HOME/.qiskit/qiskit-ibm.json file when you use qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMRuntimeService.save_account() method.

    You can now save multiple credentials and give an optional name for each credential.

  • Qiskit Runtime service is accessible using an IBM Quantum (legacy) account or an IBM Cloud (cloud) account. qiskit-ibm-runtime enables you to connect to either of these accounts:

    # Legacy
from qiskit_ibm_runtime import IBMRuntimeService
service = IBMRuntimeService(auth="legacy", token="abc")
 
# Cloud
from qiskit_ibm_runtime import IBMRuntimeService
service = IBMRuntimeService(auth="cloud", token="abc", instance="IBM Cloud CRN or Service instance name")

  • qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMBackend class now implements the qiskit.providers.BackendV2 interface and provides flatter access to the configuration of a backend, for example:

    # BackendV1:
backend.configuration().n_qubits
 
# BackendV2:
backend.num_qubits

    Only breaking change when compared to BackendV1 is backend.name is now an attribute instead of a method.

    Refer to the qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMBackend class doc string for a list of all available attributes.

  • If you used qiskit.providers.ibmq.AccountProvider.get_backend method (for example, provider.get_backend("ibmq_qasm_simulator")) in the qiskit-ibmq-provider package, it’s equivalent method in this new package is qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMRuntimeService.backend():

    service = IBMRuntimeService()
backend = service.backend("ibmq_qasm_simulator")

  • It is now optional to specify a hub/group/project upfront when connecting to the legacy IBM Quantum account. The hub/group/project is selected in the following order.

    • hub/group/project if passed via instance parameter when initializing qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMRuntimeService
    • the specific hub/group/project required by the backend specified when calling qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMRuntimeService.run()
    • the default set previously via qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMRuntimeService.save_account()
    • a premium hub/group/project in your account
    • open access hub/group/project

  • It is now optional to specify backend_name in options when executing qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMRuntimeService.run() method when using cloud runtime (IBM Cloud only). The server will automatically pick a backend and return the name.

  • qiskit.providers.ibmq.runtime.IBMRuntimeService.logout method in qiskit-ibmq-provider which was used to clear authorization cache on the server has been removed.

  • Python 3.6 has reached end of life and will no longer be supported in the new qiskit-ibm-runtime package.

  • qiskit.providers.ibmq.runtime.IBMRuntimeService.run_circuits method in qiskit-ibmq-provider has been removed and will be replaced by the Sampler primitive program.

  • qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMRuntimeService.run() method now accepts runtime execution options as qiskit_ibm_runtime.RuntimeOptions class in addition to already supported Dict. backend_name, image and log_level are the currently available options.

  • Final result is also streamed now after interim results when you specify a callback to qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMRuntimeService.run() or qiskit_ibm_runtime.RuntimeJob.stream_results().

0.1.0rc2

New Features

  • For convenience, you can now set the IBM Cloud service name as a value for the account instance parameter. If you choose to set the name instead of the CRN, the initialization time of the qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMRuntimeService class is slightly higher because the required CRN value is internally resolved via IBM Cloud APIs.

Bug Fixes

0.1.0rc1

New Features

  • You can now pass instance parameter in the hub/group/project format to qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMRuntimeService.jobs() to filter jobs. Currently only supported for legacy authentication.
  • You can now use the qiskit_ibm_runtime.RuntimeJob.interim_results() method to retrieve runtime program interim results. Note that interim results will only be available for up to two days.

Upgrade Notes

  • In order to be consistent with other properties in qiskit_ibm_runtime.RuntimeJob class the job_id and backend methods have been converted to properties.
  • When uploading a program with qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMRuntimeService.upload_program(), the program description is now optional.
  • When printing programs with qiskit_ibm_runtime.IBMRuntimeService.pprint_programs(), backend_requirements will now be listed.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed an issue with JSON encoding and decoding when using ParameterExpressions in conjunction with Qiskit Terra 0.19.1 and above. Previously, the Parameter instances reconstructed from the JSON output would have different unique identifiers, causing them to seem unequal to the input. They will now have the correct backing identities.
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