Gate-based quantum devices

In most cases, when we talk about quantum computers, we are discussing gate-based quantum computers. These are devices that leverage quantum properties of superposition, entanglement, and parallelism and use what is called gate operations to convert the initial state of the quantum bits, or qubits, into a final state. They are also sometimes called analog quantum computers since these gate operations are basically microwave or laser pulses being used to change the quantum information stored on the qubit. Similar pulses are used to manipulate this quantum information in specific ways by a set of gates. We can think of a gate as a function that changes the value of the qubit. We will learn more about how these quantum computers work in Chapter 6, Using Gate-Based Quantum Computers – Qubits and Quantum Circuits. As previously mentioned, Amazon Braket provides gate-based quantum devices from IonQ, Rigetti, and OQC.

Now, we will look at IonQ’...