Getting started¶
This tutorial walks you through the steps to set up a Qiskit Runtime service instance, log in to your service instance, and run your first job on a quantum computer.
If you are an administrator who needs to set up Qiskit Runtime for your organization, refer to Plan Qiskit Runtime for an organization for instructions to set up a service instance and work with users.
Create a service instance¶
If you already created a Qiskit Runtime service instance or were invited to one by an administrator, skip to the next step. To determine whether you already have access to an instance, check your IBM Cloud Instances page. If you have one or more instances shown, you can skip ahead to Install or update Qiskit packages.
Fig. 5 Instances page showing multiple instances.¶
From the Qiskit Runtime Provisioning page, choose the appropriate service plan, depending on what you need access to. For more information about these plans, see the Qiskit Runtime plans topic.
Lite: Free simulators-only plan to help you get started with Qiskit Runtime. Learn to use Qiskit Runtime by following our examples and tutorials for one of the pre-built programs available for running circuits efficiently.
Standard: A pay-as-you-go model for accessing IBM Quantum systems and simulators. Build your own programs and use all the benefits of Qiskit Runtime by running on real quantum hardware.
Because this is not a free plan, it is important to understand how to best manage your costs. See Manage the cost for tips to limit your cost, how to set up spending notifications, and more.
Complete the required information, then click Create.
Install or update Qiskit packages¶
Install or update the following packages in your development environment. They let you create circuits and work with primitives with Qiskit Runtime. For detailed instructions, refer to the Qiskit textbook. Periodically check the Qiskit release notes (or rerun these commands) so that you always have the latest version.
Note
Be sure to run these commands even if you already installed the packages, to ensure that you have the latest versions.
# Installs the latest version of the Qiskit meta-package for circuit creation.
pip install qiskit -U
# Installs the latest version of the Qiskit Runtime package, which is needed to interact with the Qiskit Runtime primitives on IBM Cloud.
pip install qiskit-ibm-runtime -U
Authenticate to the service¶
To authenticate to the service, call QiskitRuntimeService with your IBM Cloud API key and the CRN:
from qiskit_ibm_runtime import QiskitRuntimeService
service = QiskitRuntimeService(channel="ibm_cloud", token="<IBM Cloud API key>", instance="<IBM Cloud CRN>")
Find your access credentials¶
Find your API key. From the API keys page, view or create your API key, then copy it to a secure location so you can use it for authentication.
Find your Cloud Resource Name (CRN). Open the Instances page and click your instance. In the page that opens, click the icon to copy your CRN. Save it in a secure location so you can use it for authentication.
Optionally save your credentials to disk¶
Optionally save your credentials to disk (in the $HOME/.qiskit/qiskit-ibm.json file). If you don’t save your credentials to disk, you must specify your credentials every time you start a new session.
If you save your credentials to disk, you can use QiskitRuntimeService() in the future to initialize your account.
from qiskit_ibm_runtime import QiskitRuntimeService
# Save account to disk.
QiskitRuntimeService.save_account(channel="ibm_cloud", token="<IBM Cloud API key>", instance="<IBM Cloud CRN>")
service = QiskitRuntimeService()
If you need to update your saved credentials, run save_account again, passing in overwrite=True and the updated credentials. For more information about managing your account, see the account management topic.
Choose a primitive to run¶
Qiskit Runtime uses primitives to interface with quantum computers and they are publicly available. Choose the appropriate link to continue learning how to run a primitive.