Amazon's AWS announced its first quantum chip called Ocelot, designed to reduce error correction by up to 90%. Two silicon microchips are bonded atop each other, with thin layers of superconducting material on the surface of each other.
The announcement comes about 15 months after AWS first talked about the development of what was then called a "prototype" error correction chip. The difference now, according to an Amazon spokesperson who responded to an email from Fierce Electronics, is that Amazon's earlier work has been peer-reviewed, and the company is now ready to talk about just how good Ocelot is at error correction.
"AWS has designed Ocelot’s architecture from the ground up to implement quantum error correction in an efficient and effective way," the spokesperson stated. "It has the potential to reduce the resources required for quantum error correction by up to 90%, compared to conventional approaches. It uses a kind of qubit technology, called cat qubits, named after the famous Schrödinger's cat thought experiment. Cat qubits intrinsically suppress certain forms of errors—simplifying and reducing the quantum error correction required. Ocelot has a unique architecture that integrates cat qubit technology and additional quantum error correction components into the chip itself that can be manufactured using processes borrowed from the electronics industry."
Error correction is the cause célèbre in the quantum world today, as major corporations race ahead to build powerful quantum computers for next-level compute capabilities in real-world applications.
Oscillators in the design are made from a thin film of superconducting material called Tantalum, and Amazon said its material scientists have developed a specific way to process Tantalum on the silicon chip to boost the oscillator performance. Oscillators are used to generate a repeating electrical signal with even timing.
Amazon said the prototype Ocelot was designed to test the effectiveness of AWS quantum error correction architecture. The company posted a blog and and a separate science blog.