UPDATED 19:07 EDT / FEBRUARY 01 2021

CLOUD

Microsoft brings its Azure Quantum cloud service into public preview

Microsoft Corp. said today that its Azure Quantum platform that lets customers play around with quantum computing tools built by its hardware and software partners is now in public preview.

The company wants researchers and developers to start using its quantum cloud service to explore, build and test new applications that can take advantage of its potentially transformational quantum technologies.

Quantum computing is based on a fundamentally different architecture to classical computing. Whereas classical bits hold a single value of either zero or one, quantum bits or qubits can hold multiple values at the same time. That means they can solve many problems exponentially faster than classical computers, though the technology is still in its infancy.

Microsoft is pitching Azure Quantum as a one-stop shop for developers, with both software and hardware resources that are needed to build and run quantum applications.

Microsoft’s hardware partners Honeywell International Inc. and IonQ Inc. have both developed trapped-ion quantum systems. The qubits are charged atoms, suspended inside a device known as an ion trap. Carefully tuned electromagnetic fields hold the atoms in place. Computations are performed by encoding information into the spin state of the ions using lasers, then manipulating this information in a way that facilitates data processing.

Those systems differ from the approach being pursued by Google LLC and IBM, which base their qubits on circuits fabricated from superconducting materials and kept at temperatures near absolute zero.

“Honeywell’s system leverages mid-compute measurement and qubit reuse, allowing developers to write quantum algorithms in uniquely impactful ways,” Krysta Svore, general manager of Microsoft Quantum, said in a blog post. “IonQ’s system offers a dynamically reconfigurable system for up to 11 fully connected qubits that lets you run a two-qubit gate between any pair.”

Other partners include Toshiba Corp., Quantum Circuits Inc. and 1QBit Inc.

Azure Quantum also offers software packages to help developers get started writing quantum apps. These include an open-source quantum development kit that serves as a basis for developing new algorithms with Q#, a programming language especially for writing quantum apps.

Svore said researchers can use the QDK to develop and test new quantum algorithms, run small examples on a simulator, or estimate resource requirements to run simulations at scale on more capable quantum computers that will be built in the future. QDK’s GitHub repository also includes open-source Q# libraries and samples that can be used to build quantum computing applications.

Azure Quantum was announced in November 2019 and has been available in limited preview since last year. Svore said that developers have already carried out experiments using the platform in fields such as materials design, financial modeling and traffic optimization.

“Customers using Azure Quantum have already demonstrated valuable ways to build solutions to complex problems,” Svore said. “From logistics and freight optimization to risk management solutions and fighting cancer, we’re seeing real-world application of Azure Quantum solutions today.”

Constellation Research Inc. analyst Holger Mueller said the launch of Azure Quantum in public preview suggests that we’re just around the corner from quantum computing becoming mainstream at last.

“It all starts with making quantum available to any enterprise to learn, experiment, run pilots and ultimately workloads, and that will happen in combination with traditional cloud platforms,” Mueller said. “Microsoft’s Azure Quantum service offers some nice variety with six different quantum computing platforms available for researchers to experiment on.”

Image: Microsoft

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