Easy, Hybrid Quantum Programming with Forest
Will Zeng
Abstract:
The first scalable universal quantum computers are now available, such as the 19 qubit processor built by Rigetti Computing. As these devices mature, it is important to consider how best to make use of them. This requires new and applied programming models for quantum computing. In particular, promising near-term algorithms for quantum simulation, optimization, and machine learning require a hybrid quantum/classical programming environment. In this talk, we introduce a freely available open-source environment (Forest) based on a shared-memory intermediate representation (Quil) that is optimized for this hybrid model. The environment runs through a cloud API with client-side Python libraries that target both superconducting quantum circuit and classical simulation backends.
We will share how to get started with Forest, as well as how to do research with example hybrid algorithms using a quantum computer.
Note: This talk is part of the Platform Lab seminar.