Amazon Unveils Ocelot Quantum Chip, Promising Breakthrough in Error Correction
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has unveiled a new quantum computing chip called Ocelot, which the company claims overcomes a significant challenge in the development of usable quantum computers: error correction. The prototype chip, which currently features nine qubits, represents a pivotal step in the race to build super-powerful quantum machines.
“We really now have a way of combating the major hurdle to a practical quantum computer, which is the errors,” said Oskar Painter, AWS Head of Quantum Hardware.
The Ocelot chip utilizes a novel technique for making sense of qubits, the quantum equivalent of bits used in traditional computers. According to AWS, the chip efficiently corrects errors in a manner superior to those of competitors like Google and IBM. While these companies have focused on increasing the number of qubits in their early quantum computers, that approach requires even more qubits to manage the resulting errors.
Professor Painter noted that the design of the Ocelot chip is at a stage where the technique is beginning to show the benefits of its approach in reducing errors and optimizing resources.
How the Ocelot Chip Works: Using Cat Qubits
Quantum computers promise to surpass the capabilities of conventional computers, but a number of hurdles must be overcome before they can be useful. Unlike traditional computers, which use bits representing 0s and 1s, quantum computers utilize qubits, which can exist in a state of both 0 and 1 simultaneously. This superposition is what gives quantum computers their potential for significantly faster information processing, but qubits are highly susceptible to environmental disturbances, leading to numerous errors during computation.
Amazon’s technique uses a cat qubit, which is named after Schrödinger’s Cat thought experiment that posits a metaphorical cat that can be both alive and dead at the same time. Most qubits are vulnerable to two types of errors, but cat qubits are more resistant to one of these error types. The new study has shown that qubits on the Ocelot chip can correct for both types of errors.
Error Correction Strategies: A Comparative Analysis
Other methods for error correction exist. One common approach involves adding more qubits to share information across. Google has had the most success with this technique. However, according to Professor Andrea Morello, a quantum physicist at the University of New South Wales who wasn’t involved in the research, this approach quickly becomes difficult due to the substantial resources needed to make the requisite codes work correctly. It would take approximately 10,000 physical qubits to achieve one working qubit using that approach.
AWS’s technique should require significantly fewer qubits to correct enough errors to produce a useful computer. The Ocelot prototype has nine qubits. Other companies, such as IBM, have hundreds of qubits on a single chip. The new chip is described in detail in the journal Nature.
Professor Painter estimated that by using the cat qubit technique, his team estimates that the new design would require between a fifth and a tenth of the resources that competitors require.
There’s reasons to believe that the cat qubit architecture might improve even faster
It’s important to note that a usable quantum computer using this technology is still some years away. There are still many scaling problems to solve.
Professor Morello views Amazon’s development as encouraging.
“AWS has been in the game for less long than Google and IBM, and it’s really nice to see them really coming to speed,” he stated.
Other companies, like Microsoft, are working on more nascent technology that, in theory, will make qubits that produce fewer errors.
Potential for Scaling and Future Developments
Professor Morello’s team at UNSW is also working on cat qubits. They recently announced the successful creation of cat qubits with atoms. While their team has not yet achieved the same level of error correction that AWS has, they believe their qubit choice has greater potential for scaling up. The team will need several more years and significant engineering effort before they can achieve such an outcome.
Amazon uses metal materials called superconductors to make its qubits, while the UNSW team uses individual atoms. Once the UNSW cat qubits are integrated into a similar code as AWS’s, they are expected to be hundreds of thousands of times smaller than the 1-centimeter Ocelot chip that Amazon has developed. These chips will likely be required in the millions, so the smaller size will be a big advantage when scaling up.
