(Forbes) Azure Quantum was highlighted at Microsoft Build 2020 along with other announcements. Microsoft Azure Quantum is a full-stack, open cloud quantum ecosystem first revealed in 2019. Azure Quantum includes access to quantum hardware offered by three different companies: Honeywell Quantum Solutions, IonQ, and Quantum Computing Circuits.
The service also supports the use of Microsoft’s open-source Quantum Development Kit (QDK), Microsoft Azure classical computer, and a quantum simulator. Microsoft doesn’t have a quantum computer on the platform.
This year select customers and partners will be able to preview the Azure Quantum platform. In addition to Microsoft’s open-source QDK, it also added two new modules to the free online training platform called Microsoft Learn.
According to Microsoft, it made enhancements to Azure Quantum as a result of a 2019 survey of potential quantum developers.
Azure quantum developers will be able to use existing libraries or write algorithms with Q# and QDK, then evaluate them on one or all three different quantum hardware technologies.
There is also a Microsoft workshop planned for developers later this year.