In a significant leap forward for quantum computing technology, Amazon Web Services has announced Ocelot, its first-generation quantum chip designed to address one of the field’s most challenging obstacles: quantum error correction.
The prototype represents a fundamentally new approach to quantum computing architecture, employing bosonic quantum error correction that could dramatically reduce the resources needed to build practical quantum computers. According to researchers, Ocelot may require as little as one-tenth the resources of conventional approaches, potentially accelerating the timeline for commercially viable quantum computing.
“This represents a critical step forward in quantum error correction,” said a senior researcher involved with the project. “Traditional methods would require millions of physical qubits to create a commercially relevant quantum computer. Our approach with Ocelot significantly reduces that overhead.“
The technology is built around “cat qubits,” named after Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment. Unlike traditional qubit systems that use just two quantum states, cat qubits leverage quantum superposition of classical-like states with well-defined amplitude and phase to store quantum information more efficiently.
What makes Ocelot particularly promising is its ability to inherently suppress bit-flip errors by increasing the energy of an oscillator rather than adding more qubits. The chip’s experimental results, published in Nature, demonstrate bit-flip times approaching one second—over a thousand times longer than conventional superconducting qubits—while maintaining phase-flip times of tens of microseconds.
The Ocelot chip architecture consists of five cat data qubits, each containing an oscillator for quantum data storage, connected to ancillary transmon qubits for phase-flip error detection. This configuration allows a distance-5 error correction code to be implemented with just nine qubits total, compared to the 49 qubits that would be required using traditional surface code methods.
“What we scale matters,” noted one of the lead developers. “Just as the transistor replacing the vacuum tube revolutionized classical computing, we believe cat qubits could be the fundamental building block that makes error-corrected quantum computing practical.“
The researchers indicate that future versions of Ocelot are already in development, with the goal of exponentially reducing logical error rates through both improved component performance and increased code distance.
If the team’s projections hold true, the Ocelot architecture could reduce quantum error correction overhead by up to 90% compared to conventional approaches, potentially transforming the quantum computing landscape and accelerating progress toward practical applications that have long been theoretical possibilities.
This development marks quantum computing’s transition from theoretical concepts to practical engineering, with Amazon positioning itself at the forefront of this technological revolution.
The paper has been published in Nature.
