Introduction to primitives

Primitives were created to simplify the most common tasks for quantum computers: namely, sampling quantum states and calculating expectation values. The first Qiskit Runtime primitives (EstimatorV2 and SamplerV2) are implementations of the Qiskit primitives base classes. They provide a more sophisticated implementation (for example, by including error mitigation) as a cloud-based service and are used to access IBM Quantum® hardware.

The newest Qiskit Runtime primitive, Executor (which is in beta), provides a lower-level interface that gives more visibility and control without sacrificing performance.

• Estimator

  Computes the expectation values for one or more observables with respect to states prepared by quantum circuits. Has built-in error suppression and mitigation methods.

  Estimator quickstart

• Sampler

  Samples the output register from the execution of one or more quantum circuits.

  Sampler quickstart

• Executor (beta)

  Samples output registers from quantum circuit executions based on input directives and gives you full control and transparency over customizing error mitigation methods.

  Executor quickstart

Next steps