The Washington Post - USA (2021-10-27)

A18 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27 , 2021

BY JEANNE WHALEN

Amazon is officially entering
the race to develop a quantum
computer, joining U.S. and Chi-
nese rivals in the quest to harness
the properties of nature’s tiniest
particles into computing power
far surpassing existing machines.
Amazon will base its quantum
team at a new center on the
campus of Caltech in Pasadena,
Calif., which officially opens this
week. Caltech described it as the
first “corporate-partnership
building” on the university’s cam-
pus, showing “Caltech’s interests
in bringing fundamental science
to the marketplace.”
The investment reflects grow-
ing corporate interest in quan-
tum computers, which are still at
an early stage of development but
could someday crack problems
that existing computers can’t,
such as identifying new materials
to capture and remove carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere, or
new chemical compounds to treat
intractable diseases.
In the defense sphere, some
scientists believe quantum com-
puters might someday be able to
break existing forms of encryp-
tion, making them a hot develop-
ment priority for the United
States, China and other nations.
To day’s computers store, proc-
ess and transmit data by breaking
it down into long streams of bits,
which are typically electrical or
optical pulses representing a zero
or one.
Quantum computers use quan-
tum bits, or qubits, which exhibit
the special powers of the uni-
verse’s smallest particles: they
can exist as zeros and ones at the
same time, or in any position
between, a flexibility that gives
them the potential to perform
many calculations simultaneous-
ly.
A qubit can be an actual quan-
tum particle, such as an atom,
photon or electron. Or it can be a
tiny electrical circuit on a chip
that mimics the properties of
these particles.

Google, IBM, Honeywell,

Microsoft and start-ups such as

IonQ are leading the U.S. race to

build the machines, alongside a

number of universities handling

more basic research. In China,

university research groups in

Shanghai and Hefei are spear-

heading the work, backed by

heavy government investment.

Google and the University of

Science and Te chnology of China

have published papers over the

past two years claiming to have

achieved “quantum supremacy,”

meaning that their experimental

quantum computers were able to

solve a particular calculation that

would have stumped existing

computers. Google, for example,

said its quantum computer took

less than three and a half minutes

to perform a calculation that

would take the most powerful

classical computer on the planet

10,000 years to complete.

While those announcements

grabbed headlines, the field has a

long way to go before quantum

computers are ready for large-

scale problem-solving, scientists

say.

One big problem: Qubits are

finicky and have the propensity to

stop functioning at the slightest

disturbance, such as a minor

change in temperature.

“By the end of this decade you

might start to see machines capa-

ble of being able to tackle inter-

esting problems... that you

couldn’t t ackle with existing tech-

nologies,” said Oskar Painter, who

took a leave of absence from his

job as a Caltech physics professor

two years ago to join Amazon and

help establish the new center.

Amazon Web Services, the

company’s cloud-computing divi-

sion, already offers customers ac-

cess to early-stage quantum com-

puters developed by other com-

panies, including IonQ. Now it’s

trying to develop its own.

Amazon rented land from

Caltech to build the research cen-

ter, which the company owns and

operates. Painter and another

Caltech professor, Fernando

Brandao, who also took a leave of

absence to join Amazon, are run-

ning the research there.

The company will benefit

hugely from having access to the

Caltech community, the physi-

cists said. “This is really one of the

of the best places on Earth for

quantum computing,” Brandao

said.

He said Caltech would also

benefit because academics need

the deep pockets of industry to

scale up quantum machines. “It’s

not cheap to do that, it’s not easy

to do that,” he said. “It’s not

something that people can do just

at universities. So we need indus-

try there.”

Both parties declined to say

how much Amazon is paying in

rent. Amazon is providing finan-

cial support for quantum and

nanoscience research at Caltech

through “student and postdoctor-

al fellowships, sponsored re-

search agreements, and infra-

structure funds for Caltech’s

nanoscience facility,” the univer-

sity said. Amazon and Caltech

declined to quantify that funding.

(Amazon founder Jeff Bezos

owns The Washington Post.)

Amazon will own any intellec-

tual property generated by work

within its building, while IP that

Caltech generates through Ama-

zon-sponsored research projects

will belong to the university, both

parties said. In some cases they

will share the IP.

Many of the scientists Amazon

has hired for the center — the

company declines to say how big

the staff is — came from other

universities and companies,

which will give Caltech faculty

and students access to new brain-

power, said John Preskill, a pro-

fessor of theoretical physics at

Caltech who became an Amazon

scholar in 2020, committing to

work one day a week on Amazon’s

quantum efforts.

“They are hiring world-class

scientists,” Preskill said. The in-

teraction “has been good for

broadening me scientifically and

for our group.”

Quantum technology is spark-

ing business activity on a number

of U.S. campuses. Earlier this

year, the University of Chicago

and several partners launched

the nation’s first program to sup-

port quantum-tech start-ups,

called Duality. Amazon this

month committed to provide

more than $1 million in funding

and in-kind support to program,

the university said.

The University of Maryland,

meanwhile, houses the offices of

IonQ, the start-up co-founded by

one of the university’s physicists.

The university also recently

launched the Quantum Startup

Foundry to support new ventures

in the field.

[email protected]

Amazon joins race for quantum tech w ith Caltech center

Investment reflects

growing interest in

next-stage computers

AMAZON

An Amazon Web Services engineer uses an ellipsometer to determine the film thickness of a w afer. Amazon has rented land from Caltech

to op en a c enter dedicated to developing quantum computers, in a partnership many say will be mutually beneficial.

“By the end of this

decade you might start

to see machines capable

of being able to tackle

interesting problems...

that you couldn’t tackle

with existing

technologies.”

Oskar Painter, Caltech physics

professor who is heading Amazon’s

quantum computer research center

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