On the 27th (local time), the world's largest e-commerce company Amazon unveiled its first self-developed quantum computing chip, "Ocelot." Amazon noted that through this chip, it has taken a step towards "building efficient large-scale systems." This announcement came after cloud competitors Google and Microsoft (MS) each revealed their quantum chips.
Google announced its quantum chip "Willow" last December, while MS unveiled its phase-superconducting "Majorana 1" chip on the 19th. With Amazon joining this competition, the rivalry among technology corporations in the development of quantum computers is expected to intensify.
Oscar Painter, head of quantum hardware at Amazon Web Services (AWS), said, "Five years ago, we thought we could make a quantum computer, but today I am confident that we will make a quantum computer."
Ocelot was developed by a research team at the California Institute of Technology and is named after an "oscillator," a device that creates electrical vibrations. This chip uses "qubits" that leverage superposition and entanglement states instead of the "bits" used in conventional computers. Qubits allow information processing to occur simultaneously at 0 and 1, enabling faster calculations than traditional computers.
Ocelot uses the "cat qubit" method derived from the "Schrödinger's cat" experiment. The cat qubit has the potential to process more calculations faster than a regular qubit because it can simultaneously hold 0 and 1. This chip consists of five qubits for storing data and four error detection qubits, boasting high stability.
Currently, quantum computers aimed at commercialization are expected to be equipped with over 1 million qubits, while Google and MS revealed chips with 105 and 8 qubits, respectively. Amazon believes that the architecture of Ocelot could reduce the expense of manufacturing quantum computer components by up to 90%.