Hello /quantum computing/ World with Qiskit!
I have never been more excited to run a Hello World, I just ran one on a real quantum computer! Total time for setup and project recreation- less than an hour; then waiting on the queue for IBM's quantum computer ~ 32 m; and finally total Qiskit runtime - 3 s out of the 10 m/month free computational time that comes with the account.
The simulation
I dedicated a Red Hat VM for my quantum computing journey. Following the installation process, I started with Anaconda and used pip to install Qiskit. Created fresh Jupyter notebook and successfully imported qiskit v.0.45.2. Already prepared with an account on quantum.ibm.com, jumped into the code. Encountering just few missing packages - qiskit-ibm-provider, pylatexenc, qiskit-aer. Installed all and successfully executed the simulation. The result - slight bias towards 00 compared to 11.
The tutorial uses a computational resource no longer available. To find the current resources, log into the IBM Quantum Platform, then check the available systems on the Dashboard.
Once the job is sent for execution, it can be monitored via the job_monitor(job) function or by using the job's timeline on the Dashboard. I used the ibm_brisbane system for this experiment. As expected, the real result differed slightly from the simulation, with around 300 counts (out of 4000) for measurements 01 and 10.
Interestingly, executing the same circuit on another backend, ibm_osaka, yielded a lower noise level compared to ibm_brisbane. The counts for measurements 01 and 10 dropped to around 190, a noticeable difference.
While everything looks deceptively simple and the Qiskit tutorial/crash course is nicely presented for beginners, this is just the tip of the iceberg. I already started the courses on the IBM Quantum learning portal, and let me tell you, it's no walk in the park! Luckily, my background in mathematics, physics, software programming & testing provides a solid foundation for navigating these complexities. What comes next : figuring out what I just did and the meaning of each element! I am thrilled to see where this white rabbit will lead me.