Getting started¶

Installation¶

Qiskit Machine Learning depends on the main Qiskit package which has its own Qiskit Getting Started detailing the installation options for Qiskit and its supported environments/platforms. You should refer to that first. Then the information here can be followed which focuses on the additional installation specific to Qiskit Machine Learning.

Qiskit Machine Learning has some functions that have been made optional where the dependent code and/or support program(s) are not (or cannot be) installed by default. Those are PyTorch and Sparse. See Optional installs for more information.

Start locally

The simplest way to get started is to follow the getting started ‘Start locally’ guide for Qiskit

In your virtual environment where you installed Qiskit simply add machine-learning to the extra list in a similar manner to how the extra visualization support is installed for Qiskit, i.e:

pip install qiskit[machine-learning]

It is worth pointing out that if you’re a zsh user (which is the default shell on newer versions of macOS), you’ll need to put qiskit[machine-learning] in quotes:

pip install 'qiskit[machine-learning]'

Install from source

Installing Qiskit Machine Learning from source allows you to access the most recently updated version under development instead of using the version in the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository. This will give you the ability to inspect and extend the latest version of the Qiskit Machine Learning code more efficiently.

Since Qiskit Machine Learning depends on Qiskit, and its latest changes may require new or changed features of Qiskit, you should first follow Qiskit’s “Install from source” instructions here Qiskit Getting Started

Installing Qiskit Machine Learning from Source

Using the same development environment that you installed Qiskit in you are ready to install Qiskit Machine Learning.

Clone the Qiskit Machine Learning repository.

git clone https://github.com/qiskit-community/qiskit-machine-learning.git

Cloning the repository creates a local folder called qiskit-machine-learning.
```
cd qiskit-machine-learning
```
If you want to run tests or linting checks, install the developer requirements.
```
pip install -r requirements-dev.txt
```
Install qiskit-machine-learning.
```
pip install .
```

If you want to install it in editable mode, meaning that code changes to the project don’t require a reinstall to be applied, you can do this with:

pip install -e .

Optional installs¶

PyTorch, may be installed either using command pip install 'qiskit-machine-learning[torch]' to install the package or refer to PyTorch getting started. When PyTorch is installed, the TorchConnector facilitates its use of quantum computed networks.
Sparse, may be installed using command pip install 'qiskit-machine-learning[sparse]' to install the package. Sparse being installed will enable the usage of sparse arrays/tensors.

Ready to get going?…¶

Dive into the tutorials

Find out about Qiskit Machine Learning.

Qiskit Machine Learning tutorials