Amazon unveils quantum chip, aiming to shave years off development time

Submission Statement:

Feb 27 (Reuters) – Amazon Web Services on Thursday showed a quantum computing chip with new technology that it hopes will shave as much as five years off its effort to build a commercially useful quantum computer.

The chip, named Ocelot, is a prototype that has only a tiny fraction of the computing power needed to create a useful machine. But like its tech rivals, AWS, which is Amazon.com’s (AMZN.O), cloud computing unit, believes it has finally hit on a technology that can be scaled up into a working machine, though it has not yet set a date for when it will reach that point.

The AWS announcement, which coincides with the publication of a peer-reviewed paper in the scientific journal Nature, comes as quantum computing is sweeping through the technology world, with Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O) Google, Microsoft (MSFT.O), and startup PsiQuantum all announcing advances in recent months.