Amazon Web Services opens quantum computing centre, unveils new services
The cloud computing services provider has also opened a solutions lab to help customers experiment with the latest in quantum computing
Image: ShutterstockAmazon Web Services (AWS) is offering a quantum computing service named Amazon Braket, the cloud computing services provider—part of Amazon.com—announced on December 2. The service enables scientists, researchers, and developers to begin experimenting with computers from quantum hardware providers in a single place, the company said in a press release.
Amazon isn’t building its own quantum computer for this service, but partnering with companies including D-Wave, IonQ, and Rigetti, according to the release. Braket takes its name from the ‘bra-ket’ notation used to denote quantum mechanical states.
Amazon also announced two other initiatives. First, it has opened the AWS Center for Quantum Computing, which will bring together field experts from Amazon, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and other top academic research institutions to collaborate for research and development.
Second, it has opened the Amazon Quantum Solutions Lab, a programme to connect customers with quantum computing experts from Amazon and its technology and consulting partners. This is to develop internal expertise aimed at identifying practical uses of quantum computing, and accelerating the development of quantum applications with meaningful impact, according to the release.
Quantum computing—which taps the multiple states in the form of quantum bits or ‘qubits’, versus the binary 0 or 1 bits of classical computers—is considered to be exponentially more powerful than today’s most powerful supercomputers. For example, in a Nature paper, Google recently claimed its Sycamore processor completed a task in 200 seconds that would take a state-of-the-art supercomputer 10,000 years to finish.
Quantum computing has the potential to solve computational problems that are beyond the reach of today’s classical computers. It promises to transform areas such as energy storage, chemical engineering, material science, drug discovery, process optimisation and machine learning. However, the application of quantum computing to date has been limited mainly to proof of concept studies with limited practical use.
