Although Amazon doesn’t have its own quantum computer yet, it is working on the issue, and its AWS division has published an article to prove it.
This is the first AWS research article focused on a new architecture for quantum computing, a system that could define a new standard for error correction.
It is not easy to control quantum bits (qubits), since instead of representing a one or a zero, like traditional bits, they can exist in both states at the same time. This property means that they can perform many calculations at the same time, but they are so unstable that it is very possible that an error is generated, so the calculations performed are not always reliable. In this video we explained how it works a long time ago:
What AWS has done is describe new ways to find out when a qubit has made a mistake and correct the mistake. At the moment it is not possible to avoid 100% of the errors, but it is possible to detect that they have been made and correct them before showing the result publicly.
It is true that error rates have decreased over time, but they still do not allow us to run high-fidelity algorithms.
In the article published on aws.amazon.com they explain the different approaches:
– Active QEC, which uses many imperfect qubits to correct a qubit that has been identified as faulty, but creates a large hardware overhead, making it difficult to create a universal quantum computer that uses this system. – Passive QEC, is focuses on engineering a physical computer system that has inherent stability against errors.
In the new model, AWS researchers combine active and passive QEC to create a quantum computer that, in principle, could achieve higher levels of precision.
Although at the moment everything is on paper, it seems that quantum computing is progressing without going backwards.
