Quantum computing is a young discipline that specializes in the construction of hardware and software using the quantum properties of nature, to solve problems of higher complexity that classical computing cannot address, in multiple business areas. The most important computing revolution of the last 60 years has begun because of the integration of classical computing, quantum computing and artificial intelligence. In this paper, we present a pragmatic survey of the main quantum computing areas, focusing in particular on software and the need for real Quantum Software Engineering (QSE) to produce quantum software with sufficient quality and productivity, which is the fundamental axis for the diffusion of quantum computing.

This is the “quantum decade” when quantum computers are proving to be more useful for some types of processing than their classical counterparts. The solutions of the future will combine classical IT with quantum algorithms and applications. However, there is very little work that addresses this issue. Each manufacturer provides specific tools for their products, which makes integration between quantum and classical systems a costly and time-consuming process. We believe that we should follow good software engineering principles and best practices to build platforms and tools that insulate software and systems engineers from implementation details and provide them with adequate support. In this paper we propose qSOA® as a mechanism for the dynamic integration of hybrid (quantum/classical) software systems and present in detail an SDK for Python. qSOA® provides a set of well-defined functions with which a classical system can access quantum products as if they were a piece of classical software, accessing the use case and not its complexities. In addition to some examples that illustrates its operation in real cases, we present the evaluation of qSOA® by 200 quantum software developers in a workshop in collaboration with AWS Braket.

Abstract Quantum computing has experienced a breakthrough. Several companies are taking up the challenge of designing and manufacturing quantum computers, and the supply of tools for quantum software development is growing all the time. This article addresses quantum software development toolkits and introduces the ‘QuantumPath’ platform. In developing QuantumPath, our aim is to fulfil certain principles such as: agnosticism, extensibility, integration, independency, optimisation, scalability, security, usability and software engineering support. This article presents both the architecture itself as well as the main tools that compose QuantumPath, in order to illustrate the support which platform provides to the development and execution of quantum software.