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What's the meaning of QASM? what does it stand for?

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  • last reply by Meng Sept. 3, 2021
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    Members 8 posts
    Sept. 3, 2021, 1:07 a.m.
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    I have seen QASM code in some docs but never understand what is QASM.

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    Members 22 posts
    Sept. 3, 2021, 12:27 p.m.
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    QASM = Quantum Assembly Language. This is the assembly language that Qiskit transpiles to before sending an instruction list to the backend.

    There are many levels of transpilation.

    • The Qiskit transpiler takes a quantum algorithm/quantum circuit as input and takes the device connectivity into consideration, then it output a circuit which is compatible with the hardware.

    • After this process, it will transpile the circuit into QASM code and send instructions to the device.

    • When the device receives QASM code, it can also decompose QASM into pulse level instructions which are tailored to the specific device.

    Apart from qiskit and ibm backend, ionq and regetti also accept openQASM as instructions.