By Anna Phan, Rudy Raymond Harry Putra & Abigail Cross

To most people, quantum computing is new and exciting, but at the same time can be quite confusing too. Concepts like ‘quantum superposition’ and ‘quantum entanglement’ can be difficult to understand, let alone use in an algorithm. That is why, when we launched the IBM Q Experience back in May 2016, not only did we create an interactive graphical user interface to build and run quantum circuits, we also provided a detailed user guide describing how to use the interface as well as the physics and mathematics behind quantum computing.

Similarly, when we launched Qiskit over a year ago, we included Jupyter notebook tutorials on how to create simple quantum programs and execute them. This week, we launched a Qiskit YouTube channel for sharing video tutorials.

And, with the help of contributions from the IBM Q community, we are expanding the number of tutorials available on GitHub within this Qiskit repository: qiskit-tutorial. The repository of Qiskit tutorials can also be browsed conveniently with Jupyter Notebook Viewer.

QISKit tutorials rendered with Jupyter Notebook Viewer

The tutorials aim to show that quantum computers are not only essential for scientific computing — they are also easy and fun to use. For this purpose, we have arranged the Qiskit tutorials repository into two sections:

1. Qiskit

This section contains a core reference set of Jupyter notebooks outlining the features of the Qiskit elements, Terra, Aqua, Ignis and Aer, with the aim of teaching users how to use Qiskit.

Tutorials include how to started with Qiskit, various ways of visualizing quantum circuits and states, and techniques used to characterize quantum systems.

Hot off the press are a few new tutorials introducing how to use Qiskit Aqua to solve problems in quantum chemistry, optimization, and machine learning.

Qiskit Aqua Chemistry: Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) to compute the ground state energy of hydrogen

2. Community

This is where the rest of the tutorials are located. Quantum computing is so diverse these days, with so many great contributions from the community, these include everything from fun submissions like how to create a quantum emoji, to detailed teaching like an introduction to Shor’s algorithm.

You’ll also find the top submissions to the 2018 Teach Me Qiskit Award there, including winning submission “Exact Ising Model simulation: How to simulate time evolution at zero time”, which shows the use of quantum computers (and their comparison with ideal simulation) for quantum chemistry. Some of the other top submissions cover the concepts of quantum circuits, games, and cryptography in a creative and informative way.

Let’s Make a Deal: the Monty Hall problem with Quantum Computers

We encourage everybody to experience the quantum world through the Qiskit tutorials, which can be installed easily or run online with Binder. These resources are made possible thanks to the support and participation of the community. Anyone can participate to improve them, from fixing typos to writing new notebooks that show quantum computers are fun and easy, yet powerful. If there is a tutorial you’d like to see added, let us know!

(Thanks to Doug McClure and Hiroshi Inoue for their help in writing this article.)