"Quantum Computers That Can Perform Calculations Taking 1 Billion Years in Seconds... Commercialization Still Far Away"

Simone Severini, AWS Quantum Technologies Director
"Today's quantum computers are prototypes... The timing of commercialization is uncertain"
"New industries will emerge with quantum computing... It will change the world"

It is expected that it will take a long time to utilize quantum computers in actual industrial sites. However, if commercialization succeeds, it is also anticipated that it could change the paradigm of the industry.

Simone Severini, Director of Quantum Technologies at Amazon Web Services (AWS), explained at a quantum computing press briefing held on the morning of the 24th at the AWS office in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, "Today's quantum computers are early prototypes," adding, "We still do not know when quantum computers can be applied to real business."

Simone Severini, Quantum Technology Director (Ph.D.) at Amazon Web Services (AWS), is speaking at a quantum computing press conference held on the morning of the 24th at the AWS building in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Photo by Lee Myunghwan

Quantum computers use 'qubits,' units that can represent information by superposition or entanglement of 0 and 1 in quantum states. They are attracting industry attention because they can deliver high performance beyond the limitations of traditional computers that represent information with bits (units expressing information as 0 and 1).

According to Director Severini, quantum computers can solve problems with fewer operations than existing supercomputers for certain tasks. He explained, "Theoretically, some problems take a billion years to solve with traditional computers but can be solved in just a few seconds with quantum computers," adding, "This is because quantum algorithms themselves use exponentially fewer operations."

He explained that once the performance and stability of quantum computers are secured, their potential applications are limitless. Director Severini emphasized, "Once hardware with secured performance is developed, it will change the world," and "Quantum computers are scientific tools fundamental to industry, and completely new industries will be born."

The challenges to be solved in the development of quantum computers include 'increasing the number of qubits' and 'error correction.' Qubits are the basic units of quantum computer operations, and the more qubits there are, the faster the computation speed. Errors occurring during computation are also problems that need to be addressed. Director Severini pointed out, "Recently, errors have been reduced to about one occurrence per 1,000 calculations, but this is still not sufficient," and "Quantum algorithms that minimize errors are necessary."

Director Severini introduced AWS's quantum computing service, 'Amazon Braket,' on this day. Launched in 2019, Braket is a service that provides quantum computers via cloud computing. To this end, AWS has launched a quantum computing center and is building hardware from quantum computer startups such as IonQ there.

Director Severini, who spoke at the event, is an expert who has been researching quantum computing since the late 1990s. He served as a professor of information physics at University College London (UCL) and participated in the co-founding of quantum computing startups. Since joining AWS in 2018, he has been leading quantum technology strategy.