What’s new¶

April 2022¶

• Fairshare updates

  The algorithm for calculating job queuing has been updated. For each group and project, the duration of the scheduling window is used to convert shares into an equivalent amount of time that a plan would receive under ideal conditions. The ratio between the time used and the shares equivalent time is used as the basis for scheduling jobs.

  For an in-depth overview, see the Fair-share queuing topic.

• Fairshare interface updates

  The interface you use to create groups and projects has been updated to make it easier to assign shares. Additionally, the share of each group or project is now shown graphically on the relevant settings pages:

  

• New Usage analytics page

  A new hub-level page has been added to show usage analytics for the groups in the hub:

  

March 2021¶

• Use pulse gates to easily scale pulse-level control on OpenQASM circuits

  Now available on Armonk, Sydney, Paris, Toronto, Manhattan, Bogota, Rome, Casablanca, and Guadalupe. Read and interact with the notebook on pulse gates in Quantum Lab (requires sign-in).

• Move a set of grouped operations

  

  Now you can move multiple operations at once after grouping them. For more information, see Build, edit, and inspect quantum circuits in the IBM Quantum Composer docs.

• New simulators!

  We have released four high-performance simulators for advanced circuit and applications exploration. Read about them on the IBM Quantum Simulators page.

• IBM Quantum Experience is now IBM Quantum!

  IBM Quantum tools now have a slightly different look and feel. Upon logging in, you will find two tool options to optimize how you work – IBM Quantum Composer and IBM Quantum Lab. These replace IBM Quantum Experience and include several improvements to how you manage files, receive notifications when jobs complete, and even view results without leaving the tool you’re working in.

  • The dashboard has a fresh design with an improved focus on putting important information front and center, such as your API token, and the files you most recently worked on.

  • Easily switch between tools and access other resources with the new application switcher () in the top left corner of the page.

  • IBM Quantum Composer, still the best tool to design and visualize circuits, has an updated Setup and Run interface.

  • Now you can search your files or view job results alongside the Jupyter notebook you’re working on, in IBM Quantum Lab.

  • A file explorer is now available to allow you to better organize your work in both tools.

  • Dark mode is now available across both the Composer and Lab tools. Switch between dark and light mode under the Account menu in the upper right corner.

  • Hub/group admins can access their hub/group details and reservations from the navigation menu via the application switcher. Select Administration under Applications, or select Reservations under IBM Quantum in the application switcher menu.

February 2021¶

• Mid-circuit measurement now available on open systems!

  With the exception of Melbourne and Armonk, all IBM Quantum systems now support mid-circuit measurement. Read the blog post How to measure and reset a qubit in the middle of a circuit execution and check out the Mid-circuit measurement tutorial in the IBM Quantum Lab docs for more information.

• Search, filter, and view all systems at-a-glance with the updated Services page!

  Click the application switcher ( ) in the upper left corner, then click Services to view the Services page, where you can see information about all systems and simulators available through IBM Quantum. Click a card to view more details on that system, including your upcoming reservations, if you have access to that feature. You can even make a new reservation from here.

  In addition to the card view, visit the table view for a compact version that includes more data at-a-glance. You can sort data by column in this view.

January 2021¶

• Premium systems now support mid-circuit measurement and qubit re-use!

  Mid-circuit measurement (requires Qiskit Terra 0.16.1 or later) makes it possible to measure an individual qubit at any point in the circuit, not just at the end. You can also measure qubits multiple times within a circuit. Measurements can be triggered independently.

  In conjunction with Conditional Reset on IBM Quantum Systems, you can now re-use qubits.

  This opens up the opportunity for a wider variety of experiments, such as

  • heralding

  • monitoring qubit evolution

  • multiple measurement of ancilla qubits for post selection

  For more information, see the Mid-circuit measurement tutorial in the IBM Quantum Lab docs.

December 2020¶

• New set of basis gates on our open systems.

  The set of basis gates for IBM Quantum open systems has changed from {u1, u2, u3, cx} to {id, rz, sx, x, cx}. This new basis set will bring us closer to the level of control necessary to get a Quantum Volume of 64 (this requires Qiskit 0.22 or greater).

• Visualizations in IBM Quantum Composer now reflect probabilistic instructions.

  Add an operation such as a measurement, conditional gate, or a reset to a circuit on IBM Quantum Composer, and the visualizations below the editor will reflect these probabilistic instructions.

  Randomness in the visualizations is based on a seed number, which corresponds to a single instance of the statevector simulator. Now you can see the seed number above Quantum Composer — you can also change that number to set a new seed, and observe any differences in the visualizations of your circuit.

• New widgets in Quantum Lab!

  The new IBM Quantum Composer widget in Lab requires no installation. Interact with Quantum Composer from within the Jupyter notebook environment, alongside Qiskit code. Visit Using the Circuit Composer widget in the Quantum Lab docs to learn more.

• Conditional reset is now on all capable systems!

  All systems except ibmq_armonk and ibmq_melbourne are now enabled with conditional reset.

  Visit these tutorials in the IBM Quantum Lab docs to learn more.

  Conditional Reset on IBM Quantum Systems

  Selectable Discriminators

November 2020¶

• Check out the updates to the operations list, including the new control modifier!

  Drag the control modifier to a gate to add a control to it, or use the contextual (right-click) menu to add or remove controls.

  

• Building circuits just got faster and easier!

  We’ve added standard controls such as multi-select, copy, and paste. You can also group multiple gates to create a custom unitary operation that functions as a single gate.

  

October 2020¶

• Conditional reset is now available on some backends!

  Conditional reset is critical for allowing faster circuit execution by reducing the initialization time between shots, and allowing qubit reuse for circuits requiring a source of “fresh ancillas”.

  Visit these tutorials in the IBM Quantum Lab docs to learn more.

  Conditional Reset on IBM Quantum Systems

  Selectable Discriminators

September 2020¶

• New public API page: Use this page to learn how to use the public REST APIs For runtime jobs, use the qiskit-ibm-runtime API Reference instead.

• See each qubit’s state, at a glance. The phase disk visualization, at the end of each qubit in your IBM Quantum Composer circuit, indicates the probability that the qubit is in the state, the phase of the state vector in the complex plane, and the reduced purity of the qubit state.

• See the Quantum Volume of each backend: In the Your backends panel on the dashboard, the highest Quantum Volume (QV) recorded for each backend is now listed next to each backend’s name.

August 2020¶

IBM Quantum Composer has a new look!

• Workspace customization. Now you can see more information in a shared context. Use the View menu to choose which tools you see, then drag to resize, or click the menu in each window to further customize it. You can also choose a light or dark workspace theme.

• Get to work faster. Navigating to Quantum Composer in the menu now takes you directly to your workspace. Click the file icon next to the Circuit name to see all of your previously saved circuits.

• New operations added. A new color scheme groups operations by type. For details about the available gates and operations, see the Operations glossary.

  Note that the X gate is now represented by the symbol to match the other classical gates.

• View Python code. Switch between editable OpenQASM and read-only Python code in the Code panel. Click Open in Quantum Lab to open the code in a Jupyter Notebook environment.

• New q-sphere visualization. Unlike its cousin the Bloch sphere, the q-sphere uses nodes of varying sizes and colors arranged on a sphere to represent the state of a system of qubits. Click and drag the q-sphere to move it around! You can also view up to three visualizations at once. Note: we have removed the density matrix visualization.

• PDF download. In addition to PNG and SVG, you can now download images of visualizations and circuits as PDFs.

• No more built-in tabs. We have removed tabs from the interface. When you open a circuit from your list of circuit files, it will open in a new tab in your browser.

• Easily run and monitor jobs. If you are signed in, you can click Run Settings to view and change Run settings, then use the Jobs panel to view your jobs, all without leaving the page. You can also see the qubit count of the backend, and a status tag if the backend is offline, not available, or in maintenance mode.

Qiskit Notebooks has a new name! Find Qiskit in the cloud under Quantum Lab.