Quick Start

When you are looking to start Qiskit, you have two options. You can start Qiskit locally, which is much more secure and private, or you get started with Jupyter Notebooks hosted in IBM Quantum Lab.

Start locally

To install Qiskit locally, you will need Python 3.6+. Although it is not required, we recommend using a virtual environment with Anaconda.

Qiskit Install

Operating System

Terminal

pip install qiskit

Start Online

Get started in the cloud without installing anything with IBM Quantum Lab.

IBM Quantum Lab

What Can Qiskit Do

Circuit Library

Qiskit includes a comprehensive set of quantum gates and a variety of pre-built circuits so users at all levels can use Qiskit for research and application development.

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Transpiler

The transpiler translates Qiskit code into an optimized circuit using a backend’s native gate set, allowing users to program for any quantum processor or processor architecture with minimal inputs.

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Run on real hardware

Users can run and schedule jobs on real quantum processors, and employ Qiskit Runtime to orchestrate quantum programs on cloud-based CPUs, QPUs, and GPUs.

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Try it yourself

Ready to explore Qiskit’s capabilities for yourself? Copy the code to the right of this paragraph and try running it in your local Python environment. You can also click the link to the IBM Quantum Lab and test it there.

import qiskit
 
# Qiskit quantum circuits libraries
quantum_circuit = qiskit.circuit.library.QuantumVolume(5) #1 #3
quantum_circuit.draw()
# prepare your circuit to run
from qiskit import IBMQ #2
 
provider = IBMQ.load_account() #3
backend = provider.get_backend('ibmq_santiago') #4
 
optimized_circuit = qiskit.transpile(quantum_circuit, backend) #5
optimized_circuit.draw()
# run in real hardware
job = backend.run(optimized_circuit)
retrieved_job = backend.retrieve_job(job.job_id())
result = retrieved_job.result() #6
Open in Quantum Lab

Learn with Qiskit

Gain access to a free, digital textbook to study the concepts of quantum computing using Qiskit.

Get learning