Amazon has made its Braket quantum computing service available in the European Union (EU) for the first time.
As part of the expansion, Finnish quantum computing firm IQM is making one of its systems available through Amazon’s cloud platform.
Braket comes to the European Union
Amazon Web Services (AWS) this week announced Amazon Braket is expanding its availability to the AWS Europe (Stockholm) Region, making IQM's Garnet the first quantum processor (QPU) available to AWS customers and hosted within the European Union.
Braket is AWS’ quantum service, allowing customers to book time on quantum computers from a number of different hardware providers. It offers access to different quantum technologies, including superconducting, trapped-ion, and neutral atom devices on pay-as-you-go pricing, or customers can reserve dedicated capacity with hourly pricing and no upfront commitments.
Amazon said the expansion of services to Sweden will help customers in the European Union meet their data residency needs.
Richard Moulds, general manager, Amazon Braket, said: “We’re excited to expand our commitment to EU customers with locally hosted hardware, addressing important data residency requirements. IQM Garnet expands possibilities for customers in the European Union, with a high-quality system designed to accelerate their research in quantum optimization, simulation, and machine learning algorithms across various fields such as life sciences, chemistry, and other industrial applications.”
Unlike other services from AWS, the hardware isn’t actually hosted within Amazon data centers; the quantum computers are hosted in their respective manufacturers’ labs/data centers and connected to the AWS platform via APIs.
The service launched in the US in 2020, and was initially available from the company’s Virginia, California, and Oregon regions (though Oregon is no longer available).
While it is the first time the region is available within the EU, Braket came to the UK via its Eu-west-2 region in London in 2022, offering availability to OQC’s Lucy system.
IQM comes to Braket
Quantum computing firm IQM this week announced its 20-qubit IQM Garnet system will be available to researchers, scientists, and developers to explore quantum computing through Amazon Braket. Garnet is the first quantum processor hosted in Europe.
The Finland-based Garnet processor will be available through AWS’ Stockholm region for use Monday to Wednesday from 8:00 to 10:00 UTC (9 am-11 am CET), and on Thursday and Friday from 13:00 to 15:00 UTC (2-4pm CET).
“Onboarding to Amazon Braket is an exciting opportunity for us to demonstrate our superconducting quantum computers with high fidelities, enabled through our unique IQM tunable couplers,” said Dr. Jan Goetz, co-CEO and co-founder of IQM Quantum Computers.
“This combination of high throughput superconducting hardware and high fidelity of tunable couplers is designed to boost algorithm performance, and provide high quantum volume, and full entanglement across the whole processor.”
AWS’ Moulds added: “Bringing IQM Garnet to Amazon Braket brings even more choice to AWS customers experimenting with quantum computing.”
IQM launched its own Resonance quantum cloud service in March, offering access to quantum computers based in the company’s data centers in Espoo, Finland, and Munich, Germany. The company’s website lists access to the six-qubit IQM Deneb and 20-qubit IQM Garnet systems. Access starts at $0.5 per second.
Other quantum companies available through AWS include IonQ (via Amazon’s Virginia region), Rigetti (California), OQC (London), and QuEra (Virginia).
D-Wave and Xanadu were previously available but are no longer listed on Braket. D-Wave, which launched on Braket in 2018, has instead been available through AWS Marketplace since late 2022. Xanadu retired the computer available via Braket in June 2023.
