Science and technology cloud report original.
The quantum computing field, once dominated by Google and IBM, has now ushered in another heavyweight competitor. Recently, the cloud giant Amazon AWS officially announced three key initiatives, marking the participation in the competition of quantum computing, while pushing quantum computing services to the cloud. From the battle for hegemony between the two powers to the triumph of the three legs, the tentacles of cloud computing have begun to extend the quantum computing, opening up unlimited imagination and more unknown possibilities for the future.
September 17, 2018 - New York City, New York, U.S. - A view of the Amazon logo at Amazon Books located at The Shops at Columbus Circle. Amazon is one of the most successful companies on the S&P 500. CEO Jeff Bezos was recently named World’s Richest Man
Amazon seems to be a newcomer, but it is prepared
According to the initiatives launched by Amazon, the first one is Amazon Braket. Amazon Braket is a new fully managed AWS service that enables scientists, researchers, and developers to start experimenting with computers from quantum hardware vendors such as D-Wave, IonQ, and Rigetti. AWS said that this service allows customers to explore, evaluate and experiment with quantum computing hardware, thereby giving priority to the experience of quantum cloud computing. It is a single development environment for building quantum algorithms and testing them on simulated quantum computers, and making different attempts on various quantum hardware architectures.
In order to further fulfill the mission of quantum computing, AWS's Quantum Computing Center hopes to bring together experts in the field of quantum computing from Amazon, California Institute of Technology and other academic research institutions to jointly research and develop new quantum computing technologies. Since Amazon entered the field of quantum computing, it has always hoped to take this opportunity to promote research and development and to use technology to solve real-world problems as soon as possible.
At the same time, Amazon established the Amazon Quantum Solutions Laboratory to connect customers with quantum computing experts from Amazon and its technology and consulting partners. It is expected that the laboratory will help all relevant personnel determine the practical uses of quantum computing and accelerate the development of quantum applications. The laboratory plan will be hands-on practice and seminars to brainstorm ideas to help customers better deal with business challenges and gradually realize the use of quantum computers.
Currently, Amazon’s partners have demonstrated three different quantum processor methods, which are built on qubit devices, which encode data into quantum mechanical effects. Among them, Rigetti in the San Francisco Bay Area uses the same superconducting chips as IBM and Google; D-Wave in Canada uses a similar method to perform quantum annealing on the processor; IonQ, a spin-off company of the University of Maryland, uses laser-controlled ions Ion trap device. Amazon said the service was launched to all corporate customers this year.
It can be seen from this that Amazon is prepared to join the competition in the field of quantum computing, the cutting-edge technology. It pushes quantum computing services to the cloud, gathers the power of global cloud users to verify the technology of quantum computing, and attract users. Secondly, through the AWS Quantum Computing Center and Amazon Quantum Solutions Laboratory, we will open up the channel of production, education and research, allowing the rapid development of quantum technology at a higher frequency, and accelerating the development of quantum applications.
However, it needs to be clear that although the current prospects of quantum computing are very fascinating and can subvert the current computing model in the future, the application of quantum computing has so far been mainly limited to the proof-of-concept research stage, with limited practical applications.
The competitive quantum track is also a gamble for the future
At present, the three giants with advanced technologies in cloud quantum computing are Microsoft, Amazon and Google. In November last year, Microsoft announced that it would begin to provide selected customers with access to quantum computers in the Azure cloud. A month later, Amazon Web Services announced a similar service. IBM has provided quantum computing access in its cloud since 2016. Last week, it announced that 100 companies currently use it for quantum computing experiments, including Delta Airlines, Goldman Sachs and Daimler.
From a business perspective, quantum cloud services enable cloud providers to provide quantum computers with remote data centers. Users will obtain the authority to manipulate quantum computing from their personal computers, so as to realize software programming, or use existing software to control computing power without having to really understand how it works.
Microsoft is cooperating with 1QBit, Honeywell, IonQ and QCI to provide various quantum solutions, software and hardware. In fact, as early as 2017, Microsoft released the first public preview version of the Quantum Development Kit for the first time. It also released the Q# programming language, quantum computing simulator and other resources.
Andrew Fursman, CEO of 1QBit, a quantum cloud project that works with Azure and AWS, said that, in the final analysis, our belief is that we will use all these devices just like we access regular computing. When you access Gmail, you use your computer as the entrance to Google's large computer system. There are many entities building quantum computers, which can be accessed through the cloud.
Quantum computing is particularly good at simulating complex scenarios. For example, the global chemical giant Dow can simulate new chemical substances through quantum computing. The development of new chemical products has long required the injection of different substances into test tubes and observe what happens. 1QBit's software can simulate these experiments on a quantum computer.
There are good reasons to promote quantum computing through cloud services. Generally speaking, quantum computers must be stored at extremely low temperatures, about 200 times the temperature of the outer space. Although quantum computers can solve new problems, they are not good at most of the things people want computers to do. For example, they are storing photos, making small payments, etc. But at present, quantum computers are not advanced enough to replace old methods. Other potential use cases include developing new battery technology for electric vehicles or improving systems for air traffic control.
When quantum computing becomes the national strategy of the United States, the future global competition will be the new main line of the industry. This is because quantum computing is expected to be many orders of magnitude higher than the largest existing supercomputers in terms of speed and power. Therefore, the United States, the European Union and China are fiercely competing for this high-tech "nirvana". I have to say that quantum computing is becoming a battleground for military strategists. However, compared to the traditional Turing machine, von Neumann architecture, and classical calculations, quantum entanglement in quantum mechanics once made Einstein lament the "ghostly super-distance effect".
After you sing and I will appear on the stage, all these indicate that the commercialization of quantum computing may be getting closer and closer to us. Moreover, an obvious trend has emerged. The cloud has become an important carrier for future applications of quantum computing. This trend means that once quantum computing technology has achieved major breakthroughs, users will be able to obtain low-cost and flexible access to computing resources in the first place. Thereby accelerating the application of quantum computing in the whole industry.
[Report on Technology Cloud]
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