Amazon Web Services rolled out Braket Direct, a service that allows researchers to procure dedicated private access to quantum processing units from providers such as IonQ, Oxford Quantum Circuits, QuEra, Rigetti, or Amazon Quantum Solutions Lab.
The effort is part of Amazon Braket, AWS' quantum computing marketplace launched in 2020. Announced at AWS re:Invent, Braket Direct also has experts at the ready to give guidance on workloads and get access to features and devices. These experts offer free office hours and one-on-one reservation prep sessions.
At a keynote Monday night, Peter DeSantis, Senior Vice President of AWS Utility Computing, said the issue AWS is trying to solve is that qubits are too noisy for workloads. In his keynote coverage, Constellation Research analyst Dion Hinchcliffe said:
"This tech looks five years out at least, but they are clearly gearing up because the tech will be critical to tackle issues in scientific research, cryptography, pharmacology, and other domains."
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With Braket Direct, customers can reserve an entire quantum machine on IonQ Aria, QuEra Aquila, and Rigetti Aspen-M-3 devices for a period of time. Since the machines are completely dedicated, customers can run complex and time sensitive workloads or use the systems for training.
Constellation Research analyst Holger Mueller said:
"AWS kept its quantum plans under tight lid - saying it was only research and now DeSantis shows a brand new quantum chip. AWS is focussing on a new approach to qubit error correction - which will be promising for both for cost and performance of quantum machines."
Braket Direct customers can also access systems that have reduced or limited availability. AWS cited IonQ's 30-qubit Forte system as one of those devices. It remains to be seen whether Braket Direct can boost the revenue bases of pure play quantum computing vendors. For instance, Rigetti Computing's revenue for the nine months ended Sept. 30 was $8.63 million. IonQ revenue for the same time frame was $15.94 million.
Pricing varies, but an IonQ system will run you $7,000 an hour, Rigetti goes for $3,000 an hour and QuEra is $2,500 an hour. Expert advice offerings are billed separately. Hybrid jobs have a different pricing setup. Here's a look at the Braket Direct QPU pricing.
