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Install the IBM Quantum Compute client

IBM Quantum Compute Service is the cloud-based service for executing quantum computations on IBM Quantum® hardware. This guide shows you how to install qiskit-ibm-runtime, which is the client package for accessing IBM Quantum Compute Service.

Before installing the qiskit-ibm-runtime, follow the instructions in these guides:

  1. Install Qiskit.
  2. Set up your IBM Cloud account.

Run this command to install the IBM Quantum Compute client:

pip install qiskit-ibm-runtime
Stay current with the latest versions

Periodically check the qiskit-ibm-runtime release notes to see new releases. We recommend frequently updating your requirements for qiskit-ibm-runtime by running pip install -U qiskit-ibm-runtime.

Install the IBM Quantum Compute client from source

When you install qiskit-ibm-runtime from source, you can access the current development version, instead of using the version in the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository. You can therefore inspect and extend the latest version of the code more efficiently.

Create and activate a new virtual environment

  1. Navigate to your project directory and create a minimal environment with only Python installed in it.

    python3 -m venv .venv

  2. Activate your new environment.

    source .venv/bin/activate

Install qiskit-ibm-runtime

Follow these steps to install qiskit-ibm-runtime:

  1. Clone the qiskit-ibm-runtime repository.
git clone https://github.com/Qiskit/qiskit-ibm-runtime.git
  1. Change to the qiskit-ibm-runtime directory.
cd qiskit-ibm-runtime
  1. Install qiskit-runtime. We recommend using a virtual environment to avoid polluting your global Python installation.

  • Standard install:

    pip install .

  • Editable mode: In this mode, you don't need to reinstall Qiskit when there are code changes to the project.

    pip install -e .

    In editable mode, the compiled extensions are built in debug mode without optimizations.

  1. (Optional) If you want to run tests or linting checks, install the developer requirements. We recommend using a virtual environment to avoid polluting your global Python installation.
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Next steps

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