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Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced three initiatives to help advance the application of quantum computing with a quantum lab, a centre for experts and customers of the Amazon Braket managed service offering.
According to the cloud giant, application of quantum computing to date has been limited mainly to proof of concept studies with limited practical use.
The AWS Centre for Quantum Computing will bring together researchers and engineers from Amazon with leading academic institutions in quantum computing, to develop more powerful quantum computing hardware and identify novel quantum applications with the goal of boosting innovation in science and industry.
The centre will be located at the California Institute of Technology, Caltech. David Tirrell, the Ross McCollum-William H. Corcoran professor of chemistry and chemical engineering, provost, said the partnership will help address the fundamental challenges that must be overcome if quantum computing is to reach its full potential.
Meanwhile, the Amazon Quantum Solutions Lab will connect customers with quantum computing experts from Amazon and its technology and consulting partners to help discover new applications and find ways to apply quantum computing inside their organisations.
Once technology reaches commercial viability AWS will work with partners to trial those solutions with customers.
To help with that, AWS has also introduced the Amazon Braket, a fully managed service that makes it possible for customers to get started on quantum computing by providing a single development environment to build quantum algorithms, test them on simulated quantum computers, and try them on a range of different quantum hardware architectures.
With Amazon Braket, customers can assess the present and future capabilities of a variety of different quantum technologies that initially include quantum annealing from D-Wave, ion trap devices from IonQ, and superconducting chips from Rigetti.
Combined, the Amazon Braket and the Amazon Quantum Solutions Lab will help customers to determine where existing high performance computing can currently meet their needs, begin to develop their own strategy for quantum computing, build internal expertise, and eventually deploy quantum applications.
“With quantum engineering starting to make more meaningful progress, customers are asking for ways to experiment with quantum computers and explore the technology’s potential,” Charlie Bell, senior vice president of utility computing services at AWS said.
“We believe that quantum computing will be a cloud-first technology and that the cloud will be the main way customers access the hardware.
"With our Amazon Braket service and Amazon Quantum Solutions Lab, we’re making it easier for customers to gain experience using quantum computers and to work with experts from AWS and our partners to figure out how they can benefit from the technology. And with our AWS Centre for Quantum Computing and academic partnerships, we join the effort across the scientific and industrial communities to help accelerate the promise of quantum computing.”
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