Amazon Unveils Its First Quantum-Computing Chip

E-commerce giant Amazon (AMZN) has unveiled its first ever microchip for quantum computing, saying it will help the company build advanced new hardware systems.The quantum-computing chip is called “Ocelot,” and its launch comes a week after rival Microsoft (MSFT) introduced its first quantum chip. Microsoft published a paper in the scientific journal “Nature” documenting its quantum chip’s development, and Amazon has followed suit with a similar article in the magazine.Some analysts and technologists claim that powerful quantum computers will be able to solve problems that today’s traditional computers cannot manage. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has funded quantum computing research for two decades, but the technology has been slow to make its way to consumers and businesses in the private sector.Alphabet’s (GOOGL) “Willow” is currently the world’s most powerful quantum microchip.Amazon chief executive officer (CEO) Andy Jassy has said that he expects quantum computing to play a big role for the company as cloud computing gets bigger in years to come. As with Microsoft, Amazon says that it fabricated its new quantum-computing chip internally. While big tech appears to be going all in on quantum computing, analysts say that broad-based commercial workloads won’t be running on quantum computers for 10 years or longer as the technology is still in its infancy.Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang has said that “useful quantum computers” could still be 15 to 30 years away. Amazon’s stock has risen 24% over the last 12 months to trade at $214.25 U.S. per share.