Qiskit Global Summer School

Welcome to the Qiskit Global Summer School 2025!

This year’s Qiskit Global Summer School (QGSS) is a 2-week, fully virtual event designed to guide students through the evolution of quantum technologies. In celebration of the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, the 2025 program welcomes participants of all backgrounds—whether you’re just starting your quantum journey or already an experienced Qiskit user. Week 1 focuses on the foundational topics in quantum such as quantum mechanics and algorithms while week 2 introduces the current state of the art in quantum benchmarking, error correction and more. In addition to the lectures, participants will have the opportunity to engage in hands-on labs and exercises, with topics ranging from noise mitigation to developing fault-tolerant quantum programs. Once again, qBraid is proud to support QGSS in collaboration with IBM. All participants will have specialized access to qBraid Lab, where you’ll find a seamless, pre-configured environment for all course materials and labs. This guide will help you get started with your QGSS virtual environment on qBraid Lab and introduce you to the tools and resources available to enhance your learning and software development experience.

Getting Started: Launch qBraid Lab

Creating and using notebooks

This year, we are providing a default environment for QGSS 2025 which will include all the necessary packages and tools right out of the box. You will not need to install any additional environments or packages to get started with the QGSS labs. This default kernel is designed to help you focus on learning and exploring quantum computing without worrying about setup. In your main Launcher tab, under Notebooks, click on the Python 3 [QGSS] kernel to create a Jupyter Notebook (.ipynb file) -

The Qiskit Global Summer School environment comes pre-configured with a range of software packages including qiskit, qiskit-ibm-runtime, qiskit-aer, qiskit-addon-sqd, and more. However, if there are packages you would like use in your notebooks that are not already included in the environment, you can install them from within a notebook using pip magic commands. Follow instructions below to learn how.

Accessing QGSS Files

To access the QGSS files:

Visit the IBM QGSS GitHub repository.
Click the Launch on qBraid button to automatically load the files into your qBraid environment.

You can also automatically clone the QGSS files on qBraid by starting your QGSS server and clicking on the button below -

Setting up IBM Quantum Credentials

The authentication process for IBM Quantum is essential to access IBM’s quantum devices and simulators. The step by step instructions for setting up your IBM Quantum credentials are provided in the Lab 0: Hello Quantum World!. Save your account to disk in qBraid Lab by running the following command in a notebook cell:

# Save your API key to track your progress and have access to the quantum computers

your_api_key = "deleteThisAndPasteYourAPIKeyHere"
your_crn = "deleteThisAndPasteYourCRNHere"

from qiskit_ibm_runtime import QiskitRuntimeService

QiskitRuntimeService.save_account(
    channel="ibm_quantum_platform",
    token=your_api_key,
    instance=your_crn,
    # Do not mention the name of the profile
)

Please ensure that you complete the above steps proceeding ahead. This authentication is required to see your jobs in qBraid’s Quantum Jobs Extension

Viewing IBM Jobs in qBraid Lab

To view your IBM Quantum jobs:

Open the Quantum Jobs extension in your qBraid Lab and select the IBM tab.
You will see a list of your submitted jobs along with their status. You can expand the jobs to see the details including job IDs, execution time, and more -

Installing new packages

From inside a notebook, you must run all pip commands using the “magic” % operator. For example, to install a new package from within a notebook cell, use:

[ ] %pip install <my-package>

WARNING: Do not use the ! operator for pip install commands within Jupyter notebooks on qBraid. Doing so will install packages at the system-level, where they will not be discoverable by your current notebook environment/kernel.

After installing any new packages directly from a notebook, you must restart the kernel to see the changes take effect.

You can also install new packages through the qBraid CLI

Troubleshooting

1. IBM Jobs not showing up in the Quantum Jobs extension

Ensure that you have set up your IBM Quantum credentials correctly by following the instructions in Setting up IBM Quantum Credentials.
If you have set up your credentials correctly and the jobs are still not showing up, try refreshing the Quantum Jobs extension by clicking on the refresh icon in the top right corner of the extension.
If the issue persists, double check that you have not mentioned the name of the profile in the save_account method. The default profile name is detected by our extension and should be omitted. Use the save_account method as shown in the Setting up IBM Quantum Credentials section. You can verify that the profile is saved correctly by running the following command in a notebook cell:
```
from qiskit_ibm_runtime import QiskitRuntimeService
QiskitRuntimeService.saved_accounts()
```
The output should be similar to:
```
{ 'default-ibm-quantum-platform':
  {'channel': 'ibm_quantum_platform',
    'url': 'https://cloud.ibm.com',
    'token': 'your_api_key_here',
    'instance': 'your_crn_here',
    'verify': True,
    'private_endpoint': False
  }
}
```