Amazon Debuts Its First Quantum Computing Chip

Amazon has debuted Ocelot, its first quantum computing chip. Using scalable architecture, the chip is said to reduce error correction by up to 90% and accelerate the development of quantum computing applications.

The chip represents a breakthrough in the continuous pursuit of building fault-tolerant computers that extend past normal problem solving capabilities of current technology. Where today’s computers operate on digital values between 0-9, quantum computers use elementary particles such as protons or electrons to form quantum bits and solve calculations at an exponentially faster speed.

Ocelot was developed by the Amazon Web Service Team for Quantum Computing within the California Institute of Technology. Its debut follows up on other cloud competitors’ quantum chip announcements in recent months. Microsoft and Google have announced their debut chips Majorana and Willow respectively.

“With the recent advancements in quantum research, it is no longer a matter of if, but when practical, fault-tolerant quantum computers will be available for real-world applications. Ocelot is an important step on that journey,” said Oskar Painter, AWS director of Quantum Hardware in a statement. “In the future, quantum chips built according to the Ocelot architecture could cost as little as one-fifth of current approaches, due to the drastically reduced number of resources required for error correction. Concretely, we believe this will accelerate our timeline to a practical quantum computer by up to five years.”