Amazon Unveils ‘Ocelot’ Quantum Computing Chip
Amazon has entered the quantum computing arena with the unveiling of its first quantum chip, dubbed ‘Ocelot’. The company claims this new chip significantly improves error correction, potentially slashing the cost of producing quantum chips.
Reducing Errors in Quantum Computing
Amazon’s newly announced chip, Ocelot, was developed at the AWS Center for Quantum Computing at the California Institute of Technology. The company asserts that Ocelot can drastically reduce the costs of implementing quantum error correction, potentially by up to 90% in comparison to conventional approaches. This improvement is pivotal in enhancing the fault tolerance of quantum computing. The introduction of errors, or noise, during computation is a major hurdle in quantum computing. These errors arise from background noise that interferes with computations, even though quantum computers operate at temperatures close to absolute zero, or -273 degrees Celsius.
Ground-Up Error Correction Architecture
Amazon’s approach is innovative. The company explains that the ‘Ocelot’ architecture was designed from scratch to incorporate error correction. The system uses the ‘cat qubit’ to intrinsically suppress specific types of errors. This design choice helps to reduce the resources needed for quantum error correction. The cat qubit technology combines with additional quantum error correction components on a microchip that can be produced at scale, similar to standard computer chips.
Cost Savings and Accelerated Timeline
According to Amazon, the ‘Ocelot’ architecture could cut the manufacturing cost of quantum chips by as much as 80%. This is achieved by reducing the number of resources needed for error correction. Amazon believes this advance will accelerate the timeline for the development of a practical quantum computer. Fernando Brandão and Oskar Painter, both directors of applied science at Amazon, highlight the major technical advances Ocelot achieves in superconducting quantum circuits:
- Scalable Architecture: The first realization of a scalable architecture for ‘bosonic error correction’, a way of reducing environmental noise and imperfections in quantum computing operations.
- Noise-Biased Gate: The first implementation of a noise-biased gate, which unlocks hardware-efficient error correction necessary for creating scalable, commercially viable quantum computers.
- State-of-the-Art Performance: State-of-the-art performance for superconducting qubits, with ‘bit-flip times’ approaching one second, along with phase-flip times of 20 microseconds.
Researchers behind the chip design have published a scientific paper in Nature to further describe the technology. This announcement arrives as more resources are being directed toward quantum computing research. Quantum computing has the potential to revolutionize computing, as well as make existing forms of encryption and security obsolete.
Quantum Computing Developments
Other companies are also making strides in quantum computing. IBM says it has a quantum software stack ready for business use. The National Quantum Computing Centre in the UK has plans to house 12 quantum computers in Harwell, Oxfordshire, which businesses and researchers can share.
