Now that it’s not Windows-only, you can simulate a theoretical computer on a real computer
Microsoft has ported its Quantum Development Kit to Linux and macOS.
Redmond first announced its forays into quantum computing at the Ignite conference in September 2017 and in December of the same year gave its efforts a name – Q#.
In the absence of genuinely quantum hardware to run on, Q# (with its Visual Studio integration) compiles software to run on a 30-qubit simulator (there’s also a 40-qubit simulator on Azure).
The macOS and Linux ports include “integration with VS Code and quantum simulation support”, Microsoft said in its blog post. The simulator’s been tweaked for 4-5x better performance, the post added, “especially on simulations involving 20 or more qubits”.
The development libraries and examples launched with Q# are now available at GitHub under the open source MIT License.
Redmond’s also created what could perhaps be called “Schroedinger’s Snake”: the quantum development kit has been made Python-compatible, with native support for calls in either direction (Q# to Python routines and vice-versa). ®
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