How can quantum computing benefit from open source and community-driven initiatives?

Imagine you are a CIO and is interested in quantum tech and quantum algorithms. Now company X comes and says I have a magic algorithm and I can improve upon your solution 99%. If you have no sensible people around you to either tell you this is nonsense or to tell you your current solution sucks how do you know if X does not use some classical off-the shelf solver? (actually true story, they do take this approach). More importantly, open source usually tends to spread faster and improve faster. Given the status quo I think this is highly desired.

Open source code refers to publicly available code that anyone can access and contribute to. It is often hosted on platforms like GitHub, and can serve as an incredible learning and international collaboration tool. Open source quantum software will be at the core at most quantum engineers and physicists journey through this technological revolution. Major quantum software projects such as Qiskit are open source and serve as the basis for many users journey through quantum software learning as well as the tool of choice for state of the art research and publications. It is important to foster and support these ecosystems, as in many ways they will be key foundations for the industries future.

The future of quantum computing is open source! Open source development of quantum computing technologies is one of the largest driving factors behind adoption and public accessibility! The most popular quantum computing toolkits such as Qiskit, Cirq, and Pennylane are open-source and therefore free to reproduce, modify, and distribute and moreover they're built on other open-source projects. You can even see how they work and potentially improve them yourself. The open source model fosters trust and limits potential vendor abuse of platforms in that the community can 'fork and replace' projects that a company might be inclined to otherwise hold hostage. This case is often seen with freeware turned premium.

Open source is available for anyone to use, modify, and distribute. It is developed collaboratively and shared publicly on platforms like GitHub. Open source software is released under licenses that specify how it can be used and altered: GNU General Public License (GPL), Apache License, and MIT License. This model promotes transparency, community collaboration, and the free exchange of ideas and technologies.

Open source refers to software where the original source code is freely available to anyone. It allows users to view, modify, and distribute the code, promoting collaboration and improvement. Great for businesses and developers who want flexibility and control.

Open source in quantum promotes collaboration, allowing both researchers and developers from different disciplines to peer-review open code: thus driving rapid prototyping and inclusive innovation. At the same time, open source lowers barriers to quantum education by providing free, accessible resources. With the current skills gap in quantum, these resources will certainly drive the next generation of innovators. As someone who is at the beginning of my quantum journey, I have experienced first hand the value of open source projects and software.

Open source in quantum focuses in the development layers, especially in how language interacts with hardware. Without the community aspect of open source conversation around the development of functions and unitaries, the barrier of entry becomes almost insurmountable. Organisations such as Strangeworks help to run the quantum computing stack exchange, creating an incredible facility for newcomers to ask questions (and receive useful answers!) Qiskit and Xanadu also have brilliant communities around their open source contributions. The future of this technology has to blend the proprietary engineering alongside the open conversation to expedite meaningful adoption.

Open-source in many ways lowers the adoption barrier and makes people part of a community that goes beyond the society standards. Even though it is a complex topic, by making it accessible to people beyond the common fields (mathematics, physics,...) we open the possibility for further exploration.

Open source community, which is automatically self-reviewed, creates a great starting point to create benchmarking studies. Benchmarking allows us to compare algorithms' performance against one another and also to see what hardware is best suited for what algorithm type. Since this community effort has already been active for quite a while in the quantum world and we have already a few past datapoints we can use it to judge the growth of computational capabilities in quantum both from the algorithmic as well as hardware perspective.

Expand the number of people who know about quantum computing and also expand the number of algorithms and APIs. More people using more we can grow the ecosystem and the use of quantum and improve what we already have.

All Julia quantum repos which pretty cool :) Qiskit also is open source and anybody can contribute which is very important since this allows anybody to improve upon what is doable today. Of course this does not mean anything goes to the production branch but it means there is an active ever contributing community.

My favourites are: Qiskit: for quantum circuit design, optimization, and execution. Ocean Software: tailored for solving optimization and sampling problems using quantum annealing technology. Cirq: focused on noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices Forest: includes PyQuil, the Quil compiler, and QVM, useful for general quantum algorithm development. QuTiP: for quantum optics, quantum information science, and quantum mechanics simulations. PennyLane: QML, automatic differentiation, and optimization of hybrid quantum-classical computations.

Some examples: Qiskit is a development framework for writing quantum experiments and applications. Google's Cirq, a Python library for simulating and running quantum circuits on quantum computers, Rigetti's Forest is a suite of quantum programming, simulation, and computation tools. ProjectQ is a framework for quantum computing with a strong emphasis on extensibility and flexibility.

QISKIT is an SDK that is open and largely used. You can contribute with code and become a Qiskit advocate. You can also test your code in the platform with 10 min free per month.

Open source in quantum computing fosters collaboration, speeds up innovation, and allows for greater transparency in development. By sharing algorithms and tools, researchers and developers can collectively advance the field, making quantum technologies more accessible and customizable. It's a win-win for both businesses looking to leverage quantum solutions and the broader scientific community.

There are a lot of quantum computing open source platforms where you can showcase your skills. Unitary Hack is held annually which gives monetary rewards to people who solve a particular code related problem. Higher the level of a problem, higher the reward. Platforms like Quantum Computing Stack Exchange encourage people to contribute not only in code but also to the theoretical aspects of the field, as well as helping out in documentation issues

We often think only code contributions matter. Helping document a given concept or producing examples so that others can better understand the inner workings of the project may also help to grow the community and get sound knowledge on it meanwhile. Being part of a supporting community is a key part for open-source projects not to die.

There are many ways to actively give back to the open source quantum community. Contributing code is a no-brainer but the people who review changes and write good documentation are just as essential. Getting involved in the review process for most of these projects is a great way to free time up for more experienced developers and project leaders to focus on complex issues and topics. Not only that but you'll get a better overview of how the entire project comes together, this will make you a more effective contributor yourself.

Not all projects want contributions, so don't let that discourage you. On the other hand, there are dead projects that are looking for volunteers to revitalize them. Your contribution can literally vary from zero to hero, with countless levels in between.

To contribute to open-source quantum computing community is quite easy! There are never enough people to do the job. Go to Github to the main page of the project's repository of interest. Usually, there are instructions how one can get involved. Even if not provided directly, many of such projects welcome suggestions and expansions of the code directly on the Github.

Open source quantum computing fosters collaboration and speeds innovation by making tools and algorithms widely accessible, democratizing the field. It allows for rapid learning, development, and the democratization of cutting-edge technology. However, challenges include the steep learning curve due to the field's complexity, ensuring quality and maintenance of projects, achieving standardization across diverse platforms, and addressing security concerns. Despite these hurdles, the open source model remains crucial for advancing quantum computing by pooling global expertise and resources.

The key benefit for me is the community. The biggest challenge? Also community. This is true for any type of software, quantum or not. The best open source communities have built themselves great, even fantastic, documentation, tutorials, and other training resources. Mentors can be found around every corner, it's a great experience! Unfortunately this is not true of every project, and quantum computing seems to have many of the worst examples of this. I have dropped learning about some frameworks specifically because the community was unwelcoming. Remember that if you put your name on a open source project, it's like a second PR department, make sure it does well. If you can do that you are on your way to reaping the greatest benefits.

The key benefit is definitely cost. For much of the world, any cost above zero can be prohibitive. Startups and students ought to appreciate the break, as well.

De uma certa forma, os benefícios e os desafios da computa??o quantica est?o relacionados. Se por um lado ela exige linguagens e tecnologias que fogem dos algoritmos e paradigmas tradicionais, consolidados pela computa??o clássica, por outro temos os desafios de reescrever novas formas de computar n?o baseadas em algebra booleana, mas próximas de uma matemática baseada em trigonometria, matrizes, números complexos e estatística. Exige todo um novo conhecimento de que n?o precisávamos antes, mas que abre possibilidades de descobertas que ainda n?o foram feitas. E como estamos todos na mesma largada, criar estas tecnologias com o espírito do Open Source certamente abrirá espa?o para novos conhecimentos partirem de todas as partes da sociedade

Key challenge might become access and cost. To run comphrensive analysis of performance of algorithms and/or hardware, not mentioning creating tailored applications requires credit to run on QPUs. Such can be very costly. Key benefit is that the community is acting as a peer review mechanism for itself. There is no place to sell some biased view on the topic since you are instantly being checked by hundreds or thousands of other people.

Even more important are community-driven initiatives for modernising cybersecurity. Why? A large-scale quantum computer can break the public-key encryption that underpins our current communications ecosystem. If you think about financial services, for example, any one unprepared link in the chain will cause vulnerability in the entire ecosystem. Modernising cryptography to quantum-safe is a decade long transformation. It will be complex and expensive. The more that FS companies can join together with experts, academics, solution providers and regulators, the better.

The important message is to be quantum readness. Quantum is tough but open source and community can make this more available to people special in parts of the world as Latin America where we don't have a large ecossystem and need to develop the workforce.

Quantum computing benefits from open source and community-driven initiatives by tapping into a global pool of diverse talent and expertise, accelerating innovation and problem-solving. Open source projects enable collaborative development, where researchers, developers, and enthusiasts can contribute to and refine quantum computing technologies, algorithms, and tools. This collective effort leads to faster advancements, broader testing and validation of ideas, and shared learning, which are essential for tackling the challenges of quantum computing. Community-driven initiatives also aid in education and awareness, helping to build a skilled workforce and a supportive ecosystem for quantum computing.

In addition to open-source algorithms and architectures, a community and ecosystems-based approach is valuable for an early-stage industry like quantum computing. Most players choose a vertical integration strategy to build the quantum computing stack. However, an ecosystems-based approach where you establish multiple businesses within a quantum value-chain can lead to rapid developement and foster easy collaborations. The quantum Delta and the Delft quantum computing ecosystem is a great example of this.

Open source and community-driven initiatives benefit quantum computing by accelerating innovation, tapping into a global talent pool, and democratizing access to the technology. These initiatives enable collaborative development, inclusive participation, and education, leading to faster advancements and broader adoption of quantum computing.