Providers¶
Overview¶
Access to the various services offered by IBM Quantum is controlled by the providers to which you are assigned. A provider is defined by a hierarchical organization of hub, group, and project. A hub is the top level of a given hierarchy (organization) and contains within it one or more groups. These groups are in turn populated with projects. The combination of hub/group/project is called a provider. Users can belong to more than one provider at any given time.
The hub/group/project hierarchy that makes up an IBM Quantum provider.¶
Users with a public account automatically belong to the ibm-q/open/main open provider. For organizations outside of IBM, designated hub or group administrators assign users to providers. To see the providers to which you have access, look at the bottom of your Account page.
Providers and jobs¶
When you execute a task using an IBM Quantum service (for example, sending circuits to a quantum system or simulator), a job instance is returned to you. Regardless of which service is being used, a job can track the progress of the submission through IBM Quantum, and retrieve the final result(s) of the computation. Because services are coupled to providers, the jobs created from these services are also tied to the specific provider being used. Therefore, if a user is removed from a provider, their jobs and the associated results are no longer accessible.
Private providers
Hub or group administrators can mark certain providers as private. Jobs associated with providers marked as private can only be accessed once, and must be done so within 48 hours of the job completion time. After this time limit, the jobs are permanently deleted from IBM Quantum.
Open provider¶
By default, public users who sign up for an IBM Quantum account are assigned to the open provider, ibm-q/open/main. To guarantee that everyone can use the associated IBM Quantum systems in a fair manner, this provider limits the number of jobs that can be executed or queued on a given device at any one time to a maximum of five. Submitting more than five at a time will lead to Quantum Cloud error #3458.
Leaving a provider¶
To leave a provider, visit the providers list on your Account page. Select the provider you wish to leave, then select the overflow menu and choose Leave provider.
