The following document provides an ecosystem overview of various open-source tools compatible with Cirq and that can work together to enable quantum computing research.
Research Libraries and Tools: Libraries and tools used for researching new quantum algorithms and designing and preparing experiments on quantum devices.
Cirq: A framework specifically for programming noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers.
Quantum Cloud Services: Cirq can connect to a variety of quantum cloud services. Behind each cloud service, quantum algorithms run on either a quantum processor or simulator.
Quantum Circuit Simulators: Cirq is compatible with a number of quantum circuit simulators that can run either locally or in a distributed fashion.
Algorithm libraries and experiments
| Name | Main sponsor | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Cirq | A framework for creating, editing, and invoking Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) circuits. | |
| OpenFermion | An algorithms library for developing new quantum chemistry and materials simulation algorithms | |
| Qualtran | A library for expressing and analyzing fault-tolerant quantum algorithms | |
| ReCirq | A repository of example experiments, tools, and tutorials in quantum computing | |
| Stim | A library for high-speed simulation of Clifford circuits and quantum error correction | |
| TensorFlow Quantum | A library for developing new quantum machine learning algorithms | |
| unitary | An API library providing common operations for adding quantum behaviors to games | |
| Pennylane | Xanadu | A library for quantum machine learning with TensorFlow, PyTorch, or NumPy |
Development tools
| Name | Main sponsor | Description |
|---|---|---|
| BQSKit | Lawrence Berkeley Labs | A portable quantum compiler framework with circuit optimization, synthesis, and gate set transpilation |
| Mitiq | Unitary Foundation | A library for error mitigation |
| pyGSTi | Sandia National Labs | A library for modeling and characterizing noisy quantum information processors |
| Qristal | Quantum Brilliance | A library for designing, optimizing, simulating and running hybrid quantum programs |
| Quantum Programming Studio | Quantastica | Web system for constructing and simulating quantum algorithms |
| QUEKO | UCLA | A tool for generating benchmarks with known optimal solutions |
| QuTiP | QuTiP | Toolbox for user-friendly and efficient numerical simulations of a wide variety of Hamiltonians |
| staq | softwareQ Inc | C++ library for the synthesis, transformation, optimization, and compilation of quantum circuits |
| Superstaq | Infleqtion | An SDK that optimizes the execution of quantum programs by tailoring to underlying hardware primitives |
| tket | Quantinuum | A platform-agnostic SDK for circuit optimization, compilation and noise mitigation |
| XACC | Oak Ridge National Labs | Extensible compilation framework using a novel, polymorphic quantum intermediate representation |
Quantum computing cloud services
| Company | Type of Quantum Computer |
|---|---|
| Alpine Quantum Technologies | Trapped ions |
| IonQ | Trapped ions |
| IQM | Superconducting qubits |
| Microsoft Azure Quantum | Trapped ions (Honeywell and IonQ) |
| Pasqal | Neutral atoms |
For more information for vendors about integrating with Cirq, see our RFC page.
High performance quantum circuit simulators
| Name | Main sponsor | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Qibo | Technology Innovation Institute | API library for hardware-accelerated quantum simulation and quantum hardware control |
| qsim | A high-performance circuit simulator for Schrödinger simulations | |
| quimb | Johnnie Gray | A high-performance circuit simulator using tensor-networks |
| qulacs | Quansys | A high-performance circuit simulator for Schrödinger simulations |
| Stim | A library for high-speed simulation of Clifford circuits and quantum error correction | |
| cuQuantum | NVIDIA | API libraries for speeding up quantum simulation on NVIDIA GPUs |