QISKit Algorithms and Circuits for QUantum Applications (QISKit ACQUA) is a library of algorithms for quantum computing that uses QISKit to build out and run quantum circuits.
QISKit ACQUA provides a library of cross-domain algorithms upon which domain-specific applications and stacks can be built. At the time of writing, QISKit ACQUA Chemistry has been created to utilize QISKit ACQUA for quantum chemistry computations. QISKIt ACQUA is also showcased for other domains with both code and notebook examples. Please see QISKit ACQUA Optimization and QISKit ACQUA Artificial Intelligence.
QISKit ACQUA was designed to be extensible, and uses a pluggable framework where algorithms and support objects used by algorithms, e.g optimizers, variational forms, oracles etc., are derived from a defined base class for the type and discovered dynamically at runtime.
If you'd like to contribute to QISKit ACQUA, please take a look at our contribution guidelines.
Links to Sections:
As QISKit ACQUA is built upon QISKit, you are encouraged to look over the QISKit installation too.
Like for QISKit, at least Python 3.5 or later is needed to use QISKit ACQUA. In addition, Jupyter Notebook is recommended for interacting with the tutorials. For this reason we recommend installing the Anaconda 3 Python distribution, as it comes with all of these dependencies pre-installed.
We encourage you to install QISKit ACQUA via the pip tool (a Python package manager):
pip install qiskit-acqua
pip will handle all dependencies automatically and you will always install the latest (and well-tested) release version.
We recommend using Python virtual environments to improve your experience.
Now that you have installed QISKit ACQUA you can run an algorithm. This can be done programmatically or can be done using JSON as an input. Whether via dictionary or via JSON the input is validated for correctness against schemas.
JSON is convenient when the algorithm input has been saved in this form from a prior run. A file containing a saved JSON input can be given to either the GUI or the command line tool in order to run the algorithm.
One simple way to generate such JSON input is by serializing the input to QISKit ACQUA when executing one of the applications running on top of QISKit ACQUA, such as QISKit ACQUA Chemistry, QISKit ACQUA Artificial Intelligence or QISKit ACQUA Optimization. The GUI also saves any entered configuration in JSON
The algorithms readme contains detailed information on the various parameters for each algorithm along with links to the respective components they use.
The QISKit ACQUA GUI allows you to load and save a JSON file to run an algorithm, as well as create a new one or edit an existing one. So, for example, using the UI, you can alter the parameters of an algorithm and/or its dependent objects to see how the changes affect the outcome. The pip install creates a script that allows you to start the GUI from the command line, as follows:
qiskit_acqua_ui
If you clone and run directly from the repository instead of using the pip install recommended way, then the GUI can
be run, from the root folder of the qiskit-acqua repository clone, using
python qiskit_acqua/ui/run
Configuring an experiment that involves both quantum-computing and domain-specific parameters may look like a challenging activity, which requires specialized knowledge on both the specific domain in which the experiment runs and quantum computing itself. QISKit ACQUA simplifies the configuration of any run in two ways:
- Defaults are provided for each parameter. Such defaults have been validated to be the best choices in most cases.
- Robust configuration correctness enforcement mechanisms are in place. The input parameters are always schema validated by QISKit ACQUA when attempting to run an algorithm. When using the GUI to configure an experiment, the GUI itself prevents incompatible parameters from being selected.
The command line tool will run an algorithm from the supplied JSON file. Run without any arguments, it will print help information. The pip install creates a script, which can be invoked with a JSON algorithm input file from the command line, for example as follows:
qiskit_acqua_cmd examples/H2-0.735.json
If you clone and run direct from the repository instead of using the pip install recommended way then it can be
run, from the root folder of the qiskit-acqua repository clone, using
python qiskit_acqua
As QISKit ACQUA is extensible with pluggable components, we have provided a documentation GUI that shows all the pluggable components along with the schema for their parameters. The pip install creates a script to invoke the browser GUI as follows:
qiskit_acqua_browser
Note: if you clone the repository and want to start the documentation GUI directly from your local repository instead
of using the pip install recommended way, then the documentation GUI can be run, from the root folder of the
qiskit-acqua repository clone, using the following command:
python qiskit_acqua/ui/browser
Any algorithm in QISKit ACQUA can be run programmatically too. The acqua folder in the qiskit-acqua-tutorials contains numerous
samples that demonstrate how to do this. Here you will see there is a run_algorithm method used, which takes either
the JSON algorithm input or an equivalent Python dictionary and optional AlgorithmInput object for the algorithm.
There is also a run_algorithm_to_json that simply takes the input and saves it to JSON in a self-contained form,
which can later be used by the command line or GUI.
QISKit ACQUA was inspired, authored and brought about by the collective work of a team of researchers.
QISKit ACQUA continues now to grow with the help and work of many people, who contribute to the project at different levels.
This project uses the Apache License Version 2.0 software license.