Amazon Ocelot brings quantum computing one step closer
While some might think about the open-source .NET API Gateway when hearing its name, Amazon's Ocelot doesn't have much to do with the software realm. Born at the California Institute of Technology, where it was developed by a team at the AWS Center for Quantum Computing, Amazon Ocelot is a prototype chip that promises to shave off a whopping 90% of the quantum error correction costs.
Amazon Ocelot will compete with chips such as the Microsoft Majorana 1 and the Google Willow in the race for mainstream quantum computing. Still in its early stages, the quantum computing field promises to help multiple fields take large steps forward, including medicine and computing. According to Oskar Painter, AWS director of Quantum Hardware,
"In the future, quantum chips built according to the Ocelot architecture could cost as little as one-fifth of current approaches, due to the drastically reduced number of resources required for error correction. Concretely, we believe this will accelerate our timeline to a practical quantum computer by up to five years."
When talking about Amazon Ocelot, the list of technical details includes two integrated silicon microchips with an area of about one square centimeter each, bonded one on top of another in an electrically connected stack. The surface of each microchip accommodates a thin layer of superconductors. The chip consists of 14 core components, including five data qubits and four qubits for detecting errors on them. The remaining five components are buffer circuits that are being used to stabilize the data cubits. More details can be found on the Amazon Science website.
This week, Amazon also introduced Alexa+ (free with Amazon Prime, or available to non-Prime customers for $19.99/month), a revamped version of its popular voice assistant. Alexa+ is capable of carrying out more tasks and to engage in more complex conversations than its predecessor thanks to artificial intelligence. Amazon stock remains a "strong buy" with a 12-month price forecast ranging between $203 and $306, averaging at $262. This average value translates to a 22% increase from the current price of roughly $215.
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