150 points by quantumguru 1 year ago flag hide 24 comments
quantummark 1 year ago next
I'm excited to share my experience of building a Quantum Computer from scratch. It was an exciting journey full of challenges and breakthroughs. I hope it will inspire some of you!
pascalinep 1 year ago next
Great post on your Quantum Computer blog. Could you provide some insight on how you debugged the program during development, as quantum computing is a bit more abstract for most of us.
quantummark 1 year ago next
@pascalinep Sure! I used the Qiskit simulator for testing most of the critical logic gates because, honestly, who can afford an actual quantum computer? In my process, I relied on breaking the problem into smaller parts to test one piece at a time. A series of focused tests are the secret!
qubitqueen 1 year ago prev next
That's awesome, quantummark! I've always been fascinated by quantum computing but haven't had the chance to look into it. What resources did you use to learn about building a Quantum Computer?
quantummark 1 year ago prev next
@qubitqueen My main resource for getting started was the Quantum Computing for the Very Curious online course. It was crucial in getting the fundamentals nailed down. Check it out, it's available on edX and costs only $50. Highly recommended.
qubitqueen 1 year ago next
Signing up for the course right away. Thanks for sharing, quantummark! Curious to know which quantum algorithm you implemented first and what challenges it presented.
quantummark 1 year ago next
@qubitqueen The very first quantum algorithm I tackled was the famous Shor's algorithm. Developing it for my quantum computer took weeks, but I learned a lot. Factorizing 15 with the quantum computer was an incredible experience.
sciencetech 1 year ago prev next
I followed the same course and found the exercises quite challenging. Good luck to you, quantummark. Keep us updated on any progress or discoveries!
knowledgemonger 1 year ago prev next
In case anyone is interested, there's a repository with GitHub resources for learning Quantum Computing. I've been using it as my beginner's guide. You can find it at: https://github.com/qiskit-community/qiskit-community-tutorials
positron 1 year ago prev next
@knowledgemonger I've been looking through the qiskit community tutorials myself. I enjoy that there are exercises where you can test your understanding. I think the online course by quantummark and the community resources are the perfect pair.
neuralnet 1 year ago prev next
Great points @positron and @knowledgemonger. Qiskit seems to indeed be an excellent resource for getting hands-on experience with quantum computing. Looking forward to hearing more from quantummark about their journey.
protonpete 1 year ago prev next
Out of curiosity, where did you host the Qiskit simulation? I tried it on Google Colab, but it's been inconsistent for me. Something to consider when going through the tutorials at least.
quantummark 1 year ago next
@protonpete I indeed used Google Colab for the majority of my simulation since it features free GPU. It took some fussing around with it, but now it runs quite smoothly. Try adding this line before running a cell to initialize the kernel with the correct settings: !pip install qiskit-ibm-provider[ignore-ssl-verification]
bitsbots 1 year ago prev next
I worked with qiskit, and @quantummark has a great point. I've only tried it on smaller QPUs though. People who are interested might want to look at IBM Quantum Experience for those who want to use real hardware for smaller-scale tasks.
knowledgemonger 1 year ago next
@bitsbots that's fascinating! Quantum computer programming is still very new and relatively unexplored territory. Using IBM Quantum Experience could teach a few real-world tips and tricks about fine-tuning the code for quantum computers.
qubitqueen 1 year ago prev next
I followed quantummark's guide and got access to the Qiskit provider. I'm glad that you suggested this, quantummark, as I can start experimenting with both the simulator and real quantum hardware.
positron 1 year ago prev next
Just as a side not, there's another resource which I've found quite interesting: Quantum Machine Learning. It's a Keynote ppt-x online presentation that offers an insight into quantum versions of classic ML algorithms.
moonlight 1 year ago prev next
I've found that the Quantum Open Source Foundation is an excellent place to learn many things related to quantum computing. I recommend checking out Q#, Qibo, and Cirq – there's a mixture of both research and implementations that can accelerate learning.
spacetime 1 year ago prev next
In the realm of machine learning, Quantum Computing might prove to be the edge some are looking for. When exploring Qiskit, I found various quantum implementations of common ML tasks. Read more on the page: https://qiskit.org/documentation/machine-learning/
alephnull 1 year ago prev next
@spacetime I've been curious about using the Qiskit SDK or PennyLane for various machine learning implementations. There seems to be a vast potential in quantum-enhanced algorithms compared to the optimization and ML tasks that still plague the classical approach.
quantummark 1 year ago next
@alephnull To preprocess and analyze data, I employed the PennyLane library with Qiskit. The assessment and classification are still manageable with classical resources, but there are quantum-enhanced implementations like quantum kernels in Qiskit and even quantum zone dispatching in PennyLane.
majorana 1 year ago prev next
I wish I would've had these resources when I began studying quantum computing. I solved many problems with classical computers, but Grover's quantum search algorithm was the only exception that saved me time and effort.
darkhorse 1 year ago prev next
Anyone have experience with using Rigetti Forest or ProjectQ? I've been practicing quantum computing for a few weeks now, mainly on qiskit and am curious about these frameworks.
quantummark 1 year ago next
@darkhorse I was considering trying those a few months back, but I decided to dig further into Qiskit, PennyLane and Cirq. I've heard good things about ProjectQ, but I can't tell you much about Rigetti. I would give it a try if you haven't already mastered Qiskit!