AWS is joining the commercial Quantum computing market with Amazon Braket. Announced on Monday, the fully managed service draws many parallels to Microsoft’s Azure Quantum, both being fully managed services that let researchers and scientists experiment with the budding tech.
“This new service is designed to let you get some hands-on experience with qubits and quantum circuits,” said AWS vice president Jeff Barr. “You can build and test your circuits in a simulated environment and then run them on an actual quantum computer. Amazon Braket is a fully managed AWS service, with security & encryption baked in at each level.”
Like Microsoft, Braket provides Quantum hardware from a number of partners. They share a partner in IonQ, but AWS is opting for D-Wave and Rigetti over Azure’s Honeywell and QCI.
Early Adoption
Quantum computing depends on the creation of qubits, a version of the classic computer bit that can exist in a state of 1 and 0 at the same time. It’s proven difficult to craft qubits that are stable and noise-free, so current computers are still quite experimental.
However, services like Amazon Bracket and Azure Quantum will give researchers an early look at what these machines are capable of, and developers the chance to build for them.
With Quantum computing requiring such expensive, specific conditions, it’s likely they’ll never make it into the home. As a result, they’re a perfect market for cloud providers to capitalize on, and early offerings like this will help Amazon and Microsoft both gauge demand over time and build out their infrastructure.
As well as Braket, Amazon has announced its AWS Center for Computing next to the Caltech campus. Like Microsoft’s Quantum Lab in Sydney, the idea is to accelerate research and technological development. Finally, its Quantum Solutions Lab will let interested parties consult with experts and learn about the technology.
