Book Image

Quantum Computing with Silq Programming

By : Srinjoy Ganguly, Thomas Cambier
Book Image

Quantum Computing with Silq Programming

By: Srinjoy Ganguly, Thomas Cambier

Overview of this book

Quantum computing is a growing field, with many research projects focusing on programming quantum computers in the most efficient way possible. One of the biggest challenges faced with existing languages is that they work on low-level circuit model details and are not able to represent quantum programs accurately. Developed by researchers at ETH Zurich after analyzing languages including Q# and Qiskit, Silq is a high-level programming language that can be viewed as the C++ of quantum computers! Quantum Computing with Silq Programming helps you explore Silq and its intuitive and simple syntax to enable you to describe complex tasks with less code. This book will help you get to grips with the constructs of the Silq and show you how to write quantum programs with it. You’ll learn how to use Silq to program quantum algorithms to solve existing and complex tasks. Using quantum algorithms, you’ll also gain practical experience in useful applications such as quantum error correction, cryptography, and quantum machine learning. Finally, you’ll discover how to optimize the programming of quantum computers with the simple Silq. By the end of this Silq book, you’ll have mastered the features of Silq and be able to build efficient quantum applications independently.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
1
Section 1: Essential Background and Introduction to Quantum Computing
6
Section 2: Challenges in Quantum Programming and Silq Programming
10
Section 3: Quantum Algorithms Using Silq Programming
14
Section 4: Applications of Quantum Computing

Chapter 5: Challenges in Quantum Computer Programming

Early computers were originally as large as a room and required a lot of power in order to operate. Today, quantum computers are also the size of a room and require heavy electricity to operate. We currently face various challenges when developing quantum programming languages, which are mostly low level and circuit based.

This chapter will introduce you to the challenges faced by researchers in programming quantum computers. This will encourage you to think about the shortcomings of the programming languages, and therefore ways to solve these challenges. We will cover the following topics in particular:

  • A brief history of classical computers
  • The challenges of today's classical computers
  • Understanding the assembly language
  • HLLs for classical computers
  • Low-level circuit programming of quantum computers
  • Introducing quantum programming languages such as IBM Qiskit, Microsoft Q#, and Google Cirq
  • ...