IBM has announced the launch of the world’s first developers’ certification for programming a quantum computer.

IBM strongly believes that quantum computing, despite being in its infancy, has the potential to change the way difficult problems are solved. According to a report, the market of quantum computing is predicted to reach $65 billion by 2030 due to the increase in open quantum computing jobs available in the industry. The big blue has even noticed more than 600,000 installs of its open-source quantum software development kit — Qiskit, and a high rise of attendees in IBM’s Qiskit Global Summer School.

The launch of IBM’s Quantum Developer Certification is a part of the company’s quantum development roadmap, where it is looking to work with a diverse, global, cloud-based ecosystem of developers who can bring quantum computing skills to solve some of the complex industry challenges. As per the official blog post, with IBM’s Quantum Developer Certification programme, students and working professionals can use their coding skills to earn a certification from Qiskit. It will also help companies and research institutes to hire a quantum-ready workforce for their business. It will help companies hire for “classical programming and non-programming roles” and “forward-thinking individuals” that can participate in making the future of quantum computing.

The certification exam comprises 60 questions in English that can be taken by anybody on the Pearson VUE platform. By passing the exam, the individual will “demonstrate his/her experience using Qiskit to create and execute quantum computing programs on IBM quantum computers,” stated the blog post.

Sample test question

Given this code fragment, what is the probability that a measurement would result in |0> ?

qc = QuantumCircuit(1)

qc.ry(3 * math.pi/4, 0)

A. 0.8536

 B. 0.5

 C. 0.1464

 D. 1.0

As a part of IBM’s quantum roadmap, the company is also providing access to its quantum tools to educators of its quantum programme, as well as delivering high-quality educational material via its semester-long quantum computing course and its Qiskit textbook. With a vision towards building a global quantum computing ecosystem, its first-ever quantum developer certification will “provide a valuable learning path for developers and stakeholders looking to prepare themselves for quantum computing in the future.”

Know more about IBM Quantum Developer Certification here.