Drop support for 32bit x86 linux and windows

.github/workflows/wheels-build.yml

@@ -27,15 +27,6 @@ on:
         default: "default"
         required: false
 
-      wheels-32bit:
-        description: >-
-          The action to take for Tier 1 wheels.
-          Choose from 'default', 'build' or 'skip'.
-          This builds multiple artifacts, which all match 'wheels-32bit-*'.
-        type: string
-        default: "default"
-        required: false
-
       wheels-linux-s390x:
         description: >-
           The action to take for Linux s390x wheels.
@@ -133,33 +124,6 @@ jobs:
           path: ./wheelhouse/*.whl
           name: ${{ inputs.artifact-prefix }}wheels-tier-1-${{ matrix.os }}
 
-  wheels-32bit:
-    name: "Wheels / 32bit"
-    if: (inputs.wheels-32bit == 'default' && inputs.default-action || inputs.wheels-32bit) == 'build'
-    runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
-    strategy:
-      fail-fast: false
-      matrix:
-        os:
-          - ubuntu-latest
-          - windows-latest
-    steps:
-      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
-      - uses: actions/setup-python@v5
-        with:
-          python-version: ${{ inputs.python-version }}
-      - uses: dtolnay/rust-toolchain@stable
-        with:
-          components: llvm-tools-preview
-      - name: Build wheels
-        uses: pypa/[email protected]
-        env:
-          CIBW_SKIP: 'pp* cp36-* cp37-* cp38-* *musllinux* *amd64 *x86_64'
-      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
-        with:
-          path: ./wheelhouse/*.whl
-          name: ${{ inputs.artifact-prefix }}wheels-32bit-${{ matrix.os }}
-
   wheels-linux-s390x:
     name: "Wheels / Linux s390x"
     if: (inputs.wheels-linux-s390x == 'default' && inputs.default-action || inputs.wheels-linux-s390x) == 'build'

.github/workflows/wheels.yml

@@ -12,7 +12,6 @@ jobs:
       artifact-prefix: "deploy-core-"
       default-action: "skip"
       wheels-tier-1: "build"
-      wheels-32bit: "build"
       sdist: "build"
   upload-core:
     name: Deploy core
@@ -39,7 +38,6 @@ jobs:
       artifact-prefix: "deploy-others-"
       default-action: "build"
       wheels-tier-1: "skip"
-      wheels-32bit: "skip"
       sdist: "skip"
   upload-others:
     name: Deploy other

releasenotes/notes/64-bit-only-4132f330ec7804b3.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+---
+upgrade:
+  - |
+    Qiskit no longer supports Linux i686 and 32 bit Windows. Starting in Qiskit
+    2.0 a 64 bit platform is needed to run Qiskit. The user base for 32bit
+    architectures is relatively small and as Qiskit continues to focus on
+    improving performance to handle the increased scale in the complexity
+    of quantum computing hardware maintaining support for 32 bit platforms
+    is proving increasingly difficult. This coupled with the larger
+    scientific/numeric Python community's trend away from 32 bit platform
+    support maintaining support for 32bit platforms is no longer viable.
+    Qiskit 1.x will still continue to support 32 bit platforms, but starting
+    in this 2.0.0 release Qiskit no longer supports these platforms, and will
+    not publish pre-compiled binaries for these platforms any longer.