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Latest updates

Last updated 17 December 2024

Keep up with the latest and greatest from Qiskit and IBM Quantum™! Gathered here are the most recent Qiskit package release summaries, documentation updates, blogs, community events, and more.

Latest release summaries

Qiskit SDK v1.3.0

To see the release notes for all versions, visit the Qiskit SDK release notes.

The latest Qiskit version, 1.3, has just been released on GitHub and PyPI. The main changes include the following:

  • We improved performance by porting additional key components to Rust, including:

    • Core data structures, such as DAGCircuit or Target
    • Transpiler passes, including BasisTranslator, CommutationAnalysis, or UnitarySynthesis, making the transpilation around six times faster compared to v1.2.4
    • Circuit library and synthesis routines, such as PauliEvolutionGate or n_local

  • The circuit library is now faster and allows for better high-level optimization, in particular with context-aware updates to HighLevelSynthesis.

  • Python 3.13 is now officially supported. Python 3.9 is now the minimum supported version.

Explore the v1.3 release notes, and read about this release on the IBM Quantum blog.

Qiskit Runtime client 0.28.0

To see the release notes for all versions, visit the Qiskit Runtime client release notes.

Highlights from the 0.28.0 (2024-08-15) version release

Removal

  • The V1 primitives SamplerV1 and EstimatorV1 have been completely removed. Refer to the migration guide for instructions on migrating to V2 primitives.
  • The service parameter is now required in Session.from_id().

New features

  • You can now use the layer_noise_model option in ResilienceOptionsV2 to pass in a 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. You can use the NoiseLearner class to learn noise and use it in a subsequent Estimator call.

See the full 0.28.0 release notes.

Qiskit Transpiler Service client v0.3.0

We’re pleased to share that the beta release of the Qiskit Transpiler Service is now available to all IBM Quantum™ Premium Plan users.

The Qiskit Transpiler Service leverages the resources of IBM Cloud® to provide users with the latest transpilation capabilities from the Qiskit SDK. It offers a Python library that helps users seamlessly integrate the service into their current Qiskit patterns and workflows. Perhaps most importantly, the service invites users to experiment with new and improved AI-powered transpiler passes — cutting-edge tools that might be faster and produce better results than traditional transpilation methods.

On the IBM Quantum blog, we take a deep dive into the new beta release with a special focus on the new AI-powered passes. The blog includes detailed explanations showing how to use the Qiskit Transpiler Service for both full circuit transpilation and standalone AI-powered passes, with code examples for each. Take a look.

Qiskit Functions Catalog Service client v0.1.0

Introducing the Qiskit Functions preview, for IBM Quantum Premium Plan users. To get started, pip install qiskit-ibm-catalog, and explore the Qiskit Functions documentation. With the Qiskit Functions Catalog client, you can submit workloads to abstracted services designed to accelerate your research - sign in with your existing IBM Quantum Platform credentials.

Premium Plan users can get started right away with the IBM® Circuit function, or request access to circuit or application functions from our partners.

Qiskit Runtime service updates

This summary of the latest changes to the Qiskit Runtime service applies to anyone using Qiskit Runtime, regardless of how you communicate with the service (using qiskit-ibm-runtime or otherwise), or which version of the client SDK you use.

15 August 2024

  • Probabilistic error amplification (PEA) error mitigation method is now available for Estimator V2. See the ZneOptions API reference for more details.
  • A new helper program noise-learner is now available. It allows characterizing the noise processes affecting the gates in one or more circuits of interest, based on the Pauli-Lindblad noise model. The output noise model can then be passed to Estimator via the layer_noise_model option.
  • V1 primitives are no longer supported.

3 July 2024

The following endpoints are deprecated and will be removed on or after 3 October 2024: GET /stream/jobs and GET /stream/jobs/{id}. This removal has the following impacts:

  • After the endpoints are removed, job.stream_results() and job.interim_results() will be removed from the qiskit-ibm-runtime client.
  • Additional methods, such as job.result() currently use the deprecated endpoints. Upgrade to qiskit_ibm_runtime 0.25 or later before the endpoints are removed to avoid disruption.

18 June 2024

The optimization_level option is deprecated for Estimator V2 and will be removed no sooner than 30 September 2024.

3 June 2024

Probabilistic error amplification (PEA) error mitigation method is now available as an experimental option for Estimator V2. See the EstimatorOptions API reference for more details.

28 March 2024

Qiskit Runtime primitives now support OpenQASM 3 as the input format for circuits and standard JSON output format. See Qiskit Runtime REST API for examples.

Qiskit Functions Catalog updates

16 September 2024

The Qiskit Functions Catalog preview provides access to Premium Plan users to explore the available functions, including those written by IBM and those written by other members of our ecosystem. The catalog contains two kinds of functions: circuit functions and application functions.

  • Circuit functions provide a simplified interface for running circuits. They receive user-provided abstract circuits and observables as input, then manage synthesis, optimization, and execution of the representative ISA circuit. Circuit functions bring together the latest capabilities in transpilation, error suppression, and error mitigation to make utility-grade performance accessible out of the box. This allows computational scientists to focus on mapping their problems to circuits, rather than building the pattern for each problem from scratch.

  • Application functions cover higher-level tasks, like exploring algorithms and domain-specific use cases. Enterprise developers and data scientists may not have the background quantum information science knowledge for working with circuits, and instead hope to bring their domain knowledge to advance quantum computing algorithms and applications. With application functions, users can enter their classical inputs and receive solutions so they can more easily experiment with plugging quantum into their domain-specific workflows.

With the launch of the Qiskit Functions Catalog, Premium Plan developers will be able to start exploring the IBM Circuit function. The IBM Circuit function includes the latest AI-powered extensions to Qiskit for circuit synthesis, optimization, and scheduling, as well as advanced error mitigation methods to return the most accurate estimations possible with today's hardware.

Users can purchase licenses for the following functions contributed by our partners at Q-CTRL, QEDMA, Algorithmiq, and Qunasys.

Circuit functions

  • Q-CTRL is releasing a circuit function that applies AI-driven quantum control techniques, with which users can scale successfully to larger problems.
  • Algorithmiq is releasing a circuit function that applies TEM (tensor-network error mitigation), an error mitigation method for obtaining estimators with fewer shots than the PEC (probabilistic error cancellation) method.
  • QEDMA is releasing a circuit function that uses proprietary protocols for efficient and accurate characterization of the noisy QPU operations, and applies error suppression and error mitigation based on the characterization data.

Application functions

  • QunaSys is releasing a chemistry application function comprising three algorithms meant to solve the ground state energy estimation (GSEE) problem.
  • Q-CTRL is also releasing an optimization solver with which users can pass a graph or an objective, and receive solution costs.

To get started, explore the Qiskit Functions documentation.

IBM Quantum blog: IBM Quantum delivers on performance challenge

Browse all blogs at the IBM Quantum blog page.

Two years ago, IBM set a challenge for both itself and the quantum community. We asked quantum researchers to work on developing quantum algorithms incorporating circuits with 100 qubits and gate depths of 100. In exchange, we would build a quantum computer capable of returning accurate values for those circuits in less than a day’s runtime.

On 11 November 2024, at the first-ever IBM Quantum Developer Conference (QDC), IBM announced the fulfillment of that promise: a quantum computer capable of running quantum circuits with up to 5,000 two-qubit gate operations.

On the IBM Quantum blog, we take a deep dive into the many hardware advances, software innovations, and research partnerships that have made this achievement possible, and offer a preview of what's coming next. Visit the blog to learn more.

What's new in the documentation

IBM Quantum documentation recently added a number of user-facing improvements, including content updates and new features. Many of these changes are a result of specific user requests! Check out the highlights below.

Updated content

New pages

Visit the newest content in the documentation!

Content additions and improvements

New API reference documentation

User experience improvements

Updates to the infrastructure and design of the documentation include the following:

  • The required versions of packages used in code examples are now listed at the top of each guide.
  • Bug in menu view on mobile devices is now fixed.
  • Search bar is now bigger for increased discoverability, and your search query is preserved after you close the search modal.
  • All code examples have been updated to work with Qiskit SDK v1.3 and Qiskit Runtime v0.34

A huge thank you goes out to everyone in the open-source community who contributed and gave feedback! Please open an issue if you find a bug, have a suggestion, or want to share your experience.

Qiskit global community events

Join, participate, contribute! See what events are coming up on the Qiskit community events calendar.

See all product updates

Visit the Product announcements to browse all product updates and news.

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