Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) Web Services just introduced Ocelot, its latest quantum computing chip, and it's aiming to shave up to five years off the timeline for building a commercially useful quantum computer.
Quantum computing has long been seen as the next big thing, with the potential to solve complex problems in minutes that would take today's computers millions of years. But the challenge? Qubitsthe building blocks of quantum computersare incredibly unstable and prone to errors.
That's where AWS thinks it's making real progress. Ocelot uses "cat" qubits, a nod to Schrodinger's famous thought experiment, to drastically reduce the number of physical qubits needed for a working machine. While industry estimates say a million physical qubits are required, AWS believes it can get there with as few as 100,000.
The announcement, which comes alongside a peer-reviewed paper in Nature, puts AWS in the race with Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), and startups like PsiQuantum, all working to push quantum computing forward.
For now, Ocelot is still a prototype, but AWS sees it as a major step toward making quantum computing commercially viable sooner than expected.
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