quantumlib

Cirq

Python2018–2023

quantumlib / Cirq

Cirq

Python framework for creating, editing, and running Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) circuits.

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6Distinct people

10Mentions

0Explicit recommenders

5.1KGitHub stars

REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Python framework for creating, editing, and running Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) circuits.

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Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

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This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year10 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2018-07-19 00:52:04 UTC to 2023-11-13 20:59:35 UTC.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

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Period	Start (UTC)	End (exclusive, UTC)	Mentions	Submissions	Comments
2018	2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	3	2	1
2019	2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	4	0	4
2020	2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2	0	2
2021	2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	0	0	0
2022	2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	0	0	0
2023	2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	1	0	1

What Hacker News says

10 sources

westurner·Nov 13, 2023

Cirq and other QIS libraries can implement _repr_svg_ e.g. for nice quantum circuit diagrams from code: https://github.com/quantumlib/Cirq/issues/2313 A Manim walkthrough that flies from top-down to low flyover with the wave states at each point in the circuit would be neat. Do classical circuit simulators simulate backwards, nonlinear flow of current?

In Future is quantum: universities look to train engineers for an emerging industry

vtomole·Sep 26, 2020

I contributed and (still do) to open quantum computing projects like Quantum Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Vtomole, Cirq (https://github.com/quantumlib/Cirq) and Quantum Stack Exchange (https://quantumcomputing.stackexchange.com/users/362/victory...). I'm happy to answer anymore questions you have!

In Commercialising Quantum Computers

balopat·Jul 22, 2020

Hi, I personally have a similar background to you, with ~15 years of software engineering. I second some of the comments: I really started understanding quantum computing much better when I sat down and worked through the problems of the Nielsen and Chuang book ("Mike & Ike") - the first 4 chapters should give you a solid start. It starts from theoretical base and does cover some of the applications of QCs as well, though from that perspective there are a bunch of newer results that are not represented in it yet (e.g. QAOA/VQE, NISQ era algorithms, etc.). Some basic linear algebra is definitely needed though, it takes effort and practice to build up familiarity there if you are rusty on it (I was). Also, I would like to plug open source contribution as a vehicle / forcing function for learning. I started contributing to Cirq (https://gith

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ub.com/quantumlib/Cirq) starting last year in my free time (as well as some of my work time at Google) and I learned a ton through that. I now work on Cirq full time. OpenFermion, qsim, Tensorflow Quantum are all projects that are excited to have new contributors. The reason I mention my journey because it shows that you don't need formal training in quantum physics to become productive in the quantum computing community (it can definitely help though). However, the field is very deep and is moving very fast, I very much consider myself a noob and rely heavily on the expertise of others for contributions, and I spend a lot of time reading and learning still every day - including other chapters of Mike & Ike, Preskill's notes (http://www.theory.caltech.edu/people/preskill/ph229/), papers and online tutorials from other platforms that can help shed light on a particular topic. Also, don't forget to check out https://algassert.com/quirk - a very useful in-browser quantum circuit simulator written by Craig Gidney, who also was one of the main creators of Cirq. Even more inspiringly, he also, with very hard work, grew from a software engineer into a quantum researcher without formal training. His words: "My learning was heavily based on explaining things to the computer and then having the computer show me the consequences of what I explained." - he also recommends this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1826E60FD05B44E4. Hope this helps!

In Ask HN: Resources to start learning about quantum computing?

tdhttt·Dec 3, 2019

Also for a more comprehensive listing of the quantum software, see the awesome-quantum-software [0] on GiuHub. Personally I have used Cirq[1] and Qiskit[2] to implement some classic algorithms like Deutsch-Jozsa[3] and Shor's[4] algorithm and I would say the two frameworks are very similar to use for those implementations. So, it would be interesting to get some insights/opinions from someone who has used multiple frameworks. Is there any clear win/loss of those frameworks? [0]: https://github.com/qosf/awesome-quantum-software#experimenta... [1]: https://github.com/quantumlib/Cirq [2]: https://qiskit.org/ [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsch%E2%80%93Jozsa_algorith... [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor%27s_algorithm

In Amazon Braket – Get Started with Quantum Computing

vtomole·Oct 23, 2019

Cirq has most of the experiments that were used to demonstrate quantum supremacy[0]. Here is an example of cross-entropy benchmarking; the tool used to benchmark this processor: https://github.com/quantumlib/Cirq/blob/master/examples/cros... [0]: https://github.com/quantumlib/Cirq/tree/master/cirq/experime...

In Quantum Supremacy Using a Programmable Superconducting Processor

reikonomusha·Sep 18, 2019

Alongside the development of quantum hardware, which has ever-growing qubit numbers and ever-increasing fidelities and coherence times, there’s also software that’s getting more and more sophisticated. Most quantum computer providers have their own APIs for programming their machines [1,2,3]. Python seems to be the popular choice for these APIs. But one piece of software I’ve been particularly interested in, and indeed contribute to, is Rigetti’s open source optimizing compiler called quilc [4,4’], which is a sort of a GCC/Clang for quantum computers. It’s the only open-source compiler of it’s kind. They also have a high-performance simulator [5], which is used sort of like a debugger. (Perhaps surprisingly, both are written in Common Lisp.) What is very useful about the compiler is that it is retargetable, and can compile for even IBM’s

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architectures of tomorrow. You just give it an “isa” at the command line describing how many qubits it has, how they’re connected, and which gates they support, and quilc will happily compile and optimize your program for that architecture. [1] Rigetti’s pyQuil https://github.com/rigetti/pyquil [2] IBM’s Qiskit https://github.com/Qiskit/qiskit [3] Google’s Cirq https://github.com/quantumlib/Cirq [4] quilc https://github.com/rigetti/quilc [4’] quilc at FOSDEM https://youtu.be/qwfMzzKJDXI [5] quantum virtual machine https://github.com/rigetti/qvm

In IBM will soon launch a 53-qubit quantum computer

vtomole·Apr 30, 2019

FWIW, we use mypy in Cirq (https://github.com/quantumlib/Cirq) and we haven't reached version 1.0 yet.

In Python at Netflix

vtomole·Nov 30, 2018Submission

Cirq v0.4.0 release

3 points · Open discussion

Strilanc·Jul 22, 2018

Yes, there are two reasons that python is an ideal tool for quantum computing libraries at the moment. - In the NISQ era [1], circuits have limited depth and size. It doesn't matter so much which language (or even algorithm!) you use when N<1000. - Simulating a circuit is expensive, but all the heavy lifting can be delegated to highly optimized C code. The most expensive part of Cirq's simulation is (or soon will be) a call to `numpy.einsum` [2]. 1: https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.00862 2: https://github.com/quantumlib/Cirq/blob/24638f234704686c4bb6...

In Getting Started with Quantum Computing in Python

vtomole·Jul 19, 2018Submission

Cirq: A quantum programming library in Python

83 points · Open discussion