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General-purpose SDKs

Yao.jl

Maintained by QuantumBFS

Yao.jl is a major Julia-based framework and a good reminder that the quantum ecosystem is broader than the Python-first view many newcomers start with.

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Yao.jl illustration

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General-purpose SDKs

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Last pushed

May 23, 2026Updated 3mo ago

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39

What it is

A lot of ecosystem summaries quietly collapse into a handful of Python stacks. Yao.jl is useful because it keeps that picture honest and shows how another language community approaches quantum software design and performance concerns.

That makes it valuable both for Julia users specifically and for anyone trying to understand how diverse the tooling landscape really is.

Who it's for

Julia developers and readers who want a more complete picture of the ecosystem beyond Python-heavy stacks.

What you can build or learn

  • Compare a major Julia framework with Python alternatives.
  • Understand how language choice can shape framework design.
  • Use the project as a reference for non-Python ecosystem maturity.

Citation

BibTeX
@software{yaojlextensibleefficient,
  title = {Yao.jl: Extensible, Efficient Framework for Quantum Algorithm Design},
  author = {Unknown},
  year = {2020},
  doi = {10.22331/q-2020-10-11-341},
}

License

Apache-2.0

SPDX identifier detected from the repository metadata or license files.

Repository README

Preview from the project README.

Rendered as Markdown inside a scrollable preview. Long READMEs stay contained; expand or open on GitHub for the full document.

~462 words · about 2 min readOpen on GitHub

src="https://yaoquantum.org/assets/logo.png" alt="Yao Logo" width="210">

CI codecov ![][docs-stable-img] ![][docs-dev-img] ![Unitary Fund][unitary-fund-img]

Yao Extensible, Efficient Quantum Algorithm Design for Humans.

Introduction

Yao is an open source framework that aims to empower quantum information research with software tools. It is designed with following in mind:

  • quantum algorithm design;
  • quantum software 2.0;
  • quantum computation education.

We are in an early-release beta. Expect some adventures and rough edges.

Try your first Yao program

A 3 line Quantum Fourier Transformation with Quantum Blocks:

A(i, j) = control(i, j=>shift(2π/(1<<(i-j+1))))
B(n, k) = chain(n, j==k ? put(k=>H) : A(j, k) for j in k:n)
qft(n) = chain(B(n, k) for k in 1:n)

Installation

For stable release

pkg> add Yao

For current master

pkg> add Yao#master

If you have problem to install the package, please file us an issue.

For CUDA support, see CuYao.jl.

For tensor network based simulations, see YaoToEinsum.jl.

Documentation

Tutorial | Learn Quantum Computing with Yao

Algorithm Zoo

Some quantum algorithms are implemented with Yao in QuAlgorithmZoo.

Online Documentation

  • STABLE — most recently tagged version of the documentation.
  • LATEST — in-development version of the documentation.

Monthly Community Call

We are running a monthly community call, please sign up in Julia slack channel by DM Roger-luo your email address. Or follow our twitter.

If you have anything interesting to share up to 40min, or just want to talk about your experience in a brief 10min, let us know! Please sign up with a topic using this Google sheet.

Communication

The Team

This project is an effort of QuantumBFS, an open source organization for quantum science. Yao is currently maintained by Xiu-Zhe (Roger) Luo and Jin-Guo Liu with contributions from open source community. All the contributors are listed in the contributors.

Cite Yao

If you use Yao in teaching and research, please cite our work:

@article{YaoFramework2019,
  title={Yao.jl: Extensible, Efficient Framework for Quantum Algorithm Design},
  author={Xiu-Zhe Luo and Jin-Guo Liu and Pan Zhang and Lei Wang},
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:1912.10877},
  year={2019}
}

License

Yao is released under the Apache 2 license.

Read on GitHub

Activity

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