Amazon Web Services (AWS) joins the list of tech firms that have recently expanded their horizons in the field of quantum computing as it unveils a new quantum computing chip.

On Thursday, the tech giant presented ‘Ocelot’, a prototype quantum computing chip designed to test the effectiveness of the company’s quantum error correction architecture.

According to Oskar Painter, AWS director of quantum hardware, the new chip can accelerate the time it takes to build a practical quantum computer by up to five years.

“In the future, quantum chips built according to the Ocelot architecture could cost as little as one-fifth of current approaches, due to the drastically reduced number of resources required for error correction,” said Painter.

The move comes after Microsoft revealed a new quantum chip last week that it claims could bring practical quantum computing within years rather than decades, challenging conventional timelines in the industry.

The chip, developed by the AWS team at the California Institute of Technology, aims to reduce the cost of implementing quantum error correction by up to 90 per cent using the ‘cat qubit’.

The cat qubit intrinsically suppresses certain forms of error, reducing the resources required for quantum error correction.

AWS said the new technology new technology combines cat qubit technology and other quantum error correction components into a new chip that can be produced in a scalable manner, aiming to accelerate the development of fault-tolerant quantum computers able to surpass current conventional computers while dramatically saving on costs.

“History shows that important advancements in computing have been made by fundamentally rethinking hardware components, as this can have a significant impact on cost, performance, and even the feasibility of a new technology,” Amazon said in a statement.

The tech giant used the computer revolution as an example, as developments in the field kicked off when the transistor replaced the vacuum tube, allowing room-sized computers to be reduced to smaller and low-cost laptops.

Quantum computers are sensitive to the smallest changes or ‘noises’ in their environment, such as vibrations, heat, electromagnetic interference from mobile phones and Wi-Fi networks, which has made it difficult so far to build quantum computers capable of performing reliable and error-free calculations of any significant complexity.

“To solve this problem, quantum computers currently rely on quantum error correction, using special encodings of quantum information on multiple qubits, whose developments have been so far ‘prohibitively expensive”, said AWS.

But AWS said that because Ocelot was designed from the ground up with error correction ‘built in’, it estimates that scaling Ocelot to a fully-fledged quantum computer capable of transformative societal impact would require as little as “one-tenth of the resources associated with standard quantum error correcting approaches.”

AWS began its journey into quantum computing in 2019 with the launch of Amazon Braket, a quantum computing-as-a-service platform. This platform was developed in partnership with industry players such as QuEra and Rigetti.

Quantum computers are advancing rapidly, having the potential to drive major advances in society and technology, from cryptography to engineering novel materials.

Microsoft said last week that its new chip is powered by the world's first "topoconductor" - a revolutionary material that can create an entirely new state of matter, distinct from solids, liquids or gases, called a topological state.

"Many people have said that quantum computing, that is to say useful quantum computers, are decades away," said Chetan Nayak, Microsoft technical fellow of quantum hardware at the time. "I think that this brings us into years rather than decades."

Google unveiled its Willow quantum chip in December, which has dramatically reduced computing errors and performed complex calculations much faster than traditional supercomputers, the firm said.

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