Release 0.38.0

New features since last release

• Added support for converting Qiskit noise models to PennyLane NoiseModels using load_noise_model. (#577) (#578)

• Qiskit Sessions can now be used for the qiskit.remote device with the qiskit_session context manager. (#551)

Improvements 🛠

• Qiskit Runtime Primitives are supported by the qiskit.remote device. Circuits ran using the qiskit.remote device will automatically call the SamplerV2 and EstimatorV2 primitives appropriately. Additionally, runtime options can be passed as keyword arguments directly to the qiskit.remote device. (#513)

Breaking changes 💔

• Support has been removed for Qiskit versions below 0.46. The minimum required version for Qiskit is now 1.0. If you want to continue to use older versions of Qiskit with the plugin, please use version 0.36 of the Pennylane-Qiskit plugin. (#536)

• The test suite no longer runs for Qiskit versions below 0.46. (#536)

• The qiskit.basicaer device has been removed because it is not supported for versions of Qiskit above 0.46. (#546)

• The IBM quantum devices, qiskit.ibmq, qiskit.ibmq.circuit_runner and qiskit.ibmq.sampler, have been removed due to deprecations of the IBMProvider and the cloud simulator "ibmq_qasm_simulator". (#550)

Documentation 📝

• The Pennylane-Qiskit plugin page has been updated to reflect the changes in both the plugin's capabilities and Qiskit. #563

Contributors ✍️

This release contains contributions from (in alphabetical order):

Utkarsh Azad, Lillian M. A. Frederiksen, Austin Huang