Create a Classroom Account

An IBM Quantum® Classroom Account is a simple way for educators to set up and manage access for their students to use IBM Quantum hardware under the Open Plan, without the need to enter credit card information. The Open Plan provides 10 minutes of quantum processing unit (QPU) usage per 28-day rolling window.

Submit a request

Fill out this form to submit a request for a Classroom Account.

Approved Classroom Account applicants will receive an email that contains a 32-digit feature code, which you will need during the activation process below.

Don't forget to submit your account ID

If you are approved for a Classroom Account, do not delete the confirmation email you receive. In addition to the feature code, it also contains instructions for submitting your new account ID back to the IBM Quantum team so that the account can be activated. Classroom Accounts will not be activated without this final step.

Activate the account

Approved Classroom Account applicants will receive an email that contains a 32-digit feature code. Do not delete this email; it contains important information for submitting your new account ID once you've set up your account, which is a required step to complete the activation.

Once you have a feature code, follow the activation steps below:

Do not enter credit card details

When creating an account with a feature code, do not provide credit card information on IBM Cloud® unless you are actively upgrading to a paid account and are willing to accept being billed for consumed services.

Visit https://cloud.ibm.com/.
Click Create account. You must create a new account even if you have a personal IBM Cloud account, because the Classroom Account is not attached to your personal account.
Enter a valid email address and a password. Use an email address that is not associated with an existing IBM Cloud account. Click Next.
Check your email inbox for a seven-digit verification code, then return to the account creation form. Enter that code to verify your new account.
Important: In the Personal information section, do not enter your first and last name. Instead, in the "First name" field, enter your institutional affiliation, and in the "Last name" field, enter the name of the course using the account. Enter your country or region.
Complete the Account notice and click Continue.
Complete the Account privacy notice and click Continue.
At the Verify identity screen, click Register with a code.
Enter your 32-digit feature code from your confirmation email in the Enter code text box, then click Create account.
Navigate to your account settings on IBM Quantum Platform and copy the Account ID (found under Details).
Follow the instructions in the confirmation email you received to send this ID number to the IBM Quantum team, and they will process the Classroom Account for full activation.

Add users

First, ensure you have the correct account and region selected in the account and region switchers in theIBM Quantum Platform header.
Select Access management from the main menu.
On the Users tab, click "Invite user".
Enter the users' email addresses. You can add multiple addresses at the same time.
By default, an instance is assigned to each new user. It is recommended to accept the default setting.

The instance name will automatically be based on the user's email address (without the @ character and the domain name). In the "Instance naming schema" field, you can customize a prefix for each instance name; for example, if a student's email address is john-doe@university.edu, and you specify physics-101 as the prefix for this account, the instance name will be physics-101-john-doe. If you don't specify a prefix, the default prefix open-student will be used (open-student-john-doe).
The user will receive an invitation to create an IBM Cloud account and join the instance. They will not need to enter credit card information to create their account.
After the user accepts the invitation and creates their account, they can navigate to IBM Quantum Platform, where they will see their Classroom Account instance in the account switcher in the page header.

Remove users

To remove a user from a Classroom Account, follow these steps:

Select Access management from the main menu.
On the Users tab, click the three-dot menu at the end of that user's row.
Select Remove user. You will see a prompt to confirm that you want to remove the user from the account. Click Remove to confirm.

Manage instances

Each instance provides up to 10 minutes of QPU usage per 28-day rolling window.

As the Classroom Account owner, you can view all activity across all instances in the account on the Analytics page.

Student users can see data from workloads run in their own instance. They cannot see data from any other instances.

Renew the Classroom Account

To renew a Classroom Account that is nearing its expiration date, request a new feature code using this renewal form.

Next steps

Recommendations

Direct your students to the documentation for details on how to use IBM Quantum Platform. Commonly used topics include the following:

Submit a request​

Activate the account​

Add users​

Remove users​

Manage instances​

Renew the Classroom Account​

Next steps​