---
prelude: |
    The 0.8 release includes several new features and bug fixes. The
    highlights for this release are: the introduction of a unified
    :class:`~qiskit.provider.aer.AerSimulator` backend for running circuit
    simulations using any of the supported simulation methods; a simulator
    instruction library (:mod:`~qiskit.providers.aer.library`)
    which includes custom instructions for saving various kinds of simulator
    data; MPI support for running large simulations on a distributed
    computing environment.
features:
  - |
    This release includes support for building qiskit-aer with MPI support to
    run large simulations on a distributed computing environment. See the
    `contributing guide <https://github.com/Qiskit/qiskit-aer/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#building-with-mpi-support>`__
    for instructions on building and running in an MPI environment.
  - |
    It is now possible to build qiskit-aer with CUDA enabled in Windows.
    See the
    `contributing guide <https://github.com/Qiskit/qiskit-aer/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#building-with-gpu-support>`__
    for instructions on building from source with GPU support.
  - |
    When building the qiskit-aer Python extension from source several build
    dependencies need to be pre-installed to enable C++ compilation. As a
    user convenience when building the extension any of these build
    dependencies which were missing would be automatically installed using
    ``pip`` prior to the normal ``setuptools`` installation steps, however it was
    previously was not possible to avoid this automatic installation. To solve
    this issue a new environment variable ``DISABLE_DEPENDENCY_INSTALL``
    has been added. If it is set to ``1`` or ``ON`` when building the python
    extension from source this will disable the automatic installation of these
    missing build dependencies.
  - |
    Adds support for optimized N-qubit Pauli gate (
    :class:`qiskit.circuit.library.generalized_gates.PauliGate`) to the
    :class:`~qiskit.providers.aer.StatevectorSimulator`,
    :class:`~qiskit.providers.aer.UnitarySimulator`, and the
    statevector and density matrix methods of the
    :class:`~qiskit.providers.aer.QasmSimulator`.
upgrade:
  - |
    The minimum version of `Conan <https://conan.io/>`__ has been increased to 1.31.2.
    This was necessary to fix a compatibility issue with newer versions of the
    `urllib3 <https://pypi.org/project/urllib3/>`__ (which is a dependency of Conan).
    It also adds native support for AppleClang 12 which is useful for users with
    new Apple computers.
  - |
    ``pybind11`` minimum version required is 2.6 instead of 2.4. This is needed
    in order to support CUDA enabled compilation in Windows.
  - |
    Cython has been removed as a build dependency.
  - |
    Removed x90 gate decomposition from noise models that was deprecated
    in qiskit-aer 0.7. This decomposition is now done by using regular
    noise model basis gates and the qiskit transpiler.
fixes:
  - |
    Fixes bug with the :meth:`~qiskit.providers.aer.QasmSimulator.from_backend`
    method of the :class:`~qiskit.provider.aer.QasmSimulator` that would set the
    ``local`` attribute of the configuration to the backend value rather than
    always being set to ``True``.
  - |
    Fixes bug in
    :meth:`~qiskit.providers.aer.noise.NoiseModel.from_backend` and
    :meth:`~qiskit.providers.aer.QasmSimulator.from_backend` where
    :attr:`~qiskit.providers.aer.noise.NoiseModel.basis_gates` was set
    incorrectly for IBMQ devices with basis gate set
    ``['id', 'rz', 'sx', 'x', 'cx']``. Now the noise model will always
    have the same basis gates as the backend basis gates regardless of
    whether those instructions have errors in the noise model or not.
