(Forbes) AWS had been absent from quantum computing investment and R&D until last week when it announced its Braket storefront to offer third-party quantum computing hardware solutions. Six of the eight largest public cloud providers worldwide–Alibaba, Baidu, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Tencent–had already been investing heavily in quantum computing research and development (R&D).
AWS is doing what it does best: providing a storefront for quantum computing hardware vendors to demonstrate their R&D investments and progress in quantum computing hardware design. AWS Braket standardizes and manages a unified hardware-independent (and therefore hardware vendor independent) quantum computing software development front-end, which is something AWS does have experience with.
Amazon measures all third-party activity in its online retail operations. Measuring industry reaction to each of the third-party quantum computing hardware solutions it offers behind its software development frameworks will be no different.
This strategy will enable AWS to efficiently invest in winning intellectual property as it emerges, without having to experience all of the inefficiencies involved in directly funding its own internal basic scientific research.
AWS Doing What it Does Best: Providing Storefront for Quantum Computing Hardware Vendors
