After teasing the news during its recent earnings call, IonQ formally announced the availability of its flagship Aria system on Amazon Braket, AWS’s cloud-based quantum computing service.
The move comes after Aria’s release on the Microsoft Azure cloud last year, and makes Aria the second IonQ systems to be made available on Amazon Braket, following the 2020 debut on IonQ’s Harmony platform. Bracket users who had had experience with Harmony will find Aria more muscular, as the newer system has achieved 25 algorithmic qubits (#AQ)—making it more than 65,000 times more powerful than the 6 AQ# IonQ Harmony. The availability of both systems on Braket ensures that users with different needs and resources can run workloads across the quantum system best suited for their specific use cases, IonQ stated.
“We are excited for IonQ Aria to become available on Amazon Braket, as we expand the ways users can access our leading quantum computer on the most broadly adopted cloud service provider,” said Peter Chapman, CEO and President, IonQ. “Amazon Braket has been instrumental in commercializing quantum, and we look forward to seeing what new approaches will come from the brightest, most curious, minds in the space.”
Chapman briefly discussed the release of Aria on Braket during IonQ’s first quarter 2023 earnings call late last week. He said on that call, “Bringing Aria online is a crucial step for our commercial efforts as it improves our redundancy, capacity, and order processing.”
Chapman also was asked on the call if IonQ plans to eventually bring its next-generation Forte system, which recently achieved 29 AQ# well ahead of its roadmap projections, to the cloud. Chapman responded, “We’re looking at what we want to do next… We have customers clamoring to get access to that as well. We haven’t made the decision yet as to when we will put it out on the cloud versus keeping it internal.”
The availability of Amazon Braket comes as major cloud services continue to appear to be the best way of making quantum computing capabilities accessible and affordable to the broadest possible audience. There is reason to believe the market could shift as companies like IonQ are able to move closer to sales of full quantum systems to individual corporate and government customers, something that Chapman suggested IonQ is making progress on. The company has formally stated it sees the potential for a full systems sale in the next 12 to 24 months.
Dan O’Shea has covered telecommunications and related topics including semiconductors, sensors, retail systems, digital payments and quantum computing/technology for over 25 years.