Benefits of the Qiskit Advocate: Qiskit Project Access
A coder revels in climbing on board a novel and complex project
Quantum computing could transform computer science as profoundly as the transition from electronic analog computers to digital binary computing did. It offers insights into the fundamentals of our physical existence. So if you’re a coder who wants to climb on board this train as it leaves the station, the project access afforded by the IBM-sanctioned role of Qiskit Advocate is a first-class ticket.
Qiskit Advocates collaborate closely with the stellar IBM research and development team working on quantum computing. We interact as needed with everyone engaged in this once-in-a-career race to the goal: with the physicists, the corporate vice presidents, the theorists, engineers, coders, the social media managers, and the evangelists. We receive extra training in the live video sessions which, for now, have replaced the in-person Qiskit Camps in light of the ongoing COVID-19 health crisis. You will find yourself a welcome speaker at conferences and user groups.
The Qiskit Advocate primarily faces outwards, lending a hand to the thousands of people pouring into this exciting field and finding their way from every corner of the globe to Qiskit Slack, with questions and problems ranging from elementary to esoteric. You will meet with those assigned to participate on behalf of IBM Q business partners, with scholars, with scientists, and with the merely curious.
You participate alongside IBM Research while remaining an independent voice speaking on your own behalf out of the depths of your own struggles. This makes the help you offer especially valuable, because it is genuinely personal.
You earn the Qiskit Advocate badge:
- by proven participation in maintaining the code base;
- by having a helpful attitude as recognized by the team;
- by passing a test to show you have acquired the mathematical fundamentals.
The Qiskit code
Some folks learn to code for the problem at hand; others learn about a set of problems from hacking the code. You don’t have to be a physicist to progress in Qiskit: as the Zen proverb has it, “Leap, and the net will appear.”
Qiskit is a continually evolving framework. It can’t be pinned down because the theoretical and engineering realities of the problem domain it addresses are whirling across the landscape like a tornado. The only constant is change.
Qiskit is open source. On Github, Qiskit is wrapped in a state-of-the-art, continuous integration build conveyor. Everything you imagine should be there is there. You’re forking, coding features and novelties, or just tackling annoying bugs. Dozens and dozens of pull requests are open at any given moment.
Qiskit transcends IBM. It’s a genuine open source project that stands on its own and is used both by business partners and by competitors of IBM Q.
Qiskit is divided into “4–1/2” main projects:
- Terra is the architectural framework for preparing quantum computations and processing them on hardware devices or simulators. It is math, it is job control, and it offers a number of visualization facilities. Target backends, whether hardware or simulated, are interchangeable: Terra itself provides only the hooks for the various backends, whether IBM’s or those of third parties.
- Aer is a simulator backend for Terra, or rather, a collection of simulation facilities, both CPU-based and GPU-based. It is Qiskit’s locally residing simulator.
- Ignis is the statistical library for quantum error characterization and remediation.
- Aqua is the highest algorithmic level offered by Qiskit. Aqua offers showcase algorithms, but more fundamentally, it is the top-level framework against which the eventual “primitives” of deliverable quantum computing applications will be coded.
- IBM Q Provider is the “1/2”, it’s the backend plugin that connects Qiskit to IBM’s genuine quantum hardware and software simulators in the cloud.
The Challenge
There is no other challenge comparable to Qiskit in the field of open source coding. It’s like being on the Linux kernel team or the GCC compiler team, multiplied by the speed with which the architecture mutates. No one can yet say definitively what a commercially deliverable quantum computer is going to look like. Hardware approaches still seen as plausible at the present time include:
- Superconducting transmon qubit-based
- Photonic
- Topological
- Ion trap
- Quantum annealing
It’s all as safe and routine as rock climbing or hang gliding and as easy as parkour.
What matters to you, I think, is that there is an open project whose core team is staffed by some of the finest minds in the field, all of whom are as busy as can be, yet who are ready to welcome you as a fellow marathoner running with arms outstretched towards a new horizon.
The role of Qiskit Advocate awaits you.
Interested in becoming a Qiskit Advocate in 2020? Let us know here, and we’ll be sure to update you when the next round of submissions open up!
