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Update calibration-jobs.mdx to reflect updates in calibration strategy #4180

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Update calibration-jobs.mdx
andrehche Nov 3, 2025
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Update docs/guides/calibration-jobs.mdx
andrehche Nov 4, 2025
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more updates to how long jobs are run for and benchmark updating
andrehche Nov 7, 2025
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13 changes: 7 additions & 6 deletions docs/guides/calibration-jobs.mdx
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Expand Up @@ -9,21 +9,21 @@ description: Describes what calibration jobs are and how often they run

Multiple aspects of the QPU are affected by the many different calibrations that IBM® runs daily and hourly.

### Daily calibrations
### Device calibrations

These calibrations run once every day and last 30-90 minutes, depending on the size of the QPU. The devices start this daily calibration at midnight ET, with the calibration jobs interleaving one-for-one with jobs from external users. This causes the calibration jobs to spread out across several hours, sometimes more than half a day. They include the following:
Calibrations for qubit and gate parameters are conducted on an as-needed basis. Regularly scheduled diagnostic monitoring experiments, interleaved with user jobs, determine when calibrations are needed. These calibrations can occur at any time during the day, based on device performance. Benchmark-measuring experiments that are reported to Qiskit are run daily and interleave with user jobs.

* **Single-qubit calibrations**

The frequency, pulse amplitudes, and “DRAG” parameter of each qubit are calibrated.
The frequency, pulse amplitudes, and “DRAG” parameter of each qubit are calibrated on an as-needed basis.

* **Single-qubit benchmarking**

The T1/T2 coherence times and measurement error rates are measured, and randomized benchmarking is run in batches of non-adjacent qubits.
The T1/T2 coherence times and measurement error rates are measured, and randomized benchmarking is run in batches of non-adjacent qubits. These benchmarks are measured on a daily basis, with the exception of measurement error, which is reported when readout angle calibrations are performed as well.

* **Two-qubit gate calibrations and benchmarking**

The amplitude and phase of each pulse is calibrated, and randomized benchmarking in batches of well-separated gates of similar length is run.
The amplitude and phase of each pulse is calibrated, and randomized benchmarking in batches of well-separated gates of similar length is run. These benchmarks are measured on a daily basis.
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@dcmckayibm dcmckayibm Nov 10, 2025

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This part is a little confusing. Are the two-qubit gates calibrated as needed as well? Add that layer fidelity is also measured daily.


### Hourly calibrations/monitoring
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@dcmckayibm dcmckayibm Nov 10, 2025 •
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I would change this to just "Hourly monitoring" and put the readout angle calibration into the single qubit section.

It's also confusing what we mean about stability checks vs system health? And when we say some calibrations are "as-needed" can we elaborate on how these system checks trigger the calibrations?


Expand All @@ -48,7 +48,8 @@ No; since the circuits are bundled into a single job, the entire job will run wi

## How long do calibration jobs run for?

We run both daily and hourly calibration jobs. Daily calibrations on a smaller device (5-7 qubits) may take about 30 minutes, while for larger devices (7+ qubits) they could take about 90 minutes. The hourly calibrations run for about 2-3 minutes each hour.
As calibrations are performed on an as-needed basis, the timing of each calibration depends on device performance and scheduling relative to active job flow. For Heron devices, the total calibration time accumulated over the course of a day is not expected to exceed two hours.


## Simultaneously-submitted jobs with different calibrations

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