Qiskit Backend Configuration

The QiskitBackend enables you to connect to the extensive ecosystem supported by IBM Quantum and Qiskit. This backend supports both executing circuits on the high-performance local Aer simulators and real IBM Quantum hardware endpoints.

Installation

Ensure you have the required extra installed:

pip install hlquantum[qiskit]

This installs qiskit and qiskit-aer.

Local Simulator

By default, without passing a specific device or target, the QiskitBackend will use Qiskit's AerSimulator. This simulator runs locally and natively supports statevector measurements and noise models.

from hlquantum.backends import QiskitBackend
import hlquantum as hlq

backend = QiskitBackend()
result = hlq.run(circuit, backend=backend, shots=1000)

Hardware and IBM Cloud Executions

Connecting to real superconducting hardware requires an IBM Quantum Platform API token.

Get your token from the IBM Quantum Dashboard. Once acquired, you can save your token via the qiskit-ibm-runtime package which persists the configuration locally.

pip install qiskit-ibm-runtime

Save your authentication details locally using Python:

from qiskit_ibm_runtime import QiskitRuntimeService
QiskitRuntimeService.save_account(channel="ibm_quantum", token="YOUR_IBM_QUANTUM_TOKEN", set_as_default=True)

Once saved, HLQuantum can seamlessly connect to hardware devices:

from qiskit_ibm_runtime import QiskitRuntimeService
from hlquantum.backends import QiskitBackend
import hlquantum as hlq

# Instantiate the service with your saved IBM credentials
service = QiskitRuntimeService()

# Automatically fetch the least busy hardware
ibm_backend = service.least_busy(min_num_qubits=2)

# Wrap it in standard HLQuantum Backend syntax
backend = QiskitBackend(backend=ibm_backend)
result = hlq.run(circuit, backend=backend)

GPU Hardware Acceleration

Since IBM's Aer natively supports NVIDIA GPUs, HLQuantum bridges GPU enablement seamlessly. Set GPUConfig(enabled=True) across your instance. Ensure your CUDA drivers are appropriately installed for Qiskit Aer GPU implementations to activate.