Amazon.com Inc. has been expanding its presence in the Boston area, including by recently opening a new office tower in the Seaport District and acquiring Roomba maker iRobot. The tech giant is now reaching across the city to establish a new research alliance with Harvard University.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Harvard University announced plans to partner on advancing research and innovation in quantum networking. AWS plans to provide funding over three years for Harvard research projects, upgrading the university’s Center for Nanoscale Systems and training students for this emerging field.
Quantum computing is the most well-known use of quantum technologies. Put simply, quantum computing can help solve problems too large or complex for traditional computers. Quantum computers use qubits as their basic units of information, similar to how other computers use the binaries of 0 and 1.
Antia Lamas-Linares, quantum networking lead at AWS, said that quantum networking deals with “flying qubits” that move information from one place to another. By transporting information this way, new applications in security, privacy and cryptography become possible, she said. In the long term, it could be possible to connect quantum computers to each other in a network.
“What we are targeting in this collaboration…is to accelerate that foundational research so we can keep adding capabilities to what are now, one could say, fairly primitive versions of quantum networking,” Lamas-Linares said.
AWS has made other recent commitments to furthering this technology, founding the AWS Center for Quantum Networking this June. The center’s research facilities are in Boston. Lamas-Linares said Harvard will provide AWS with a local partner that has been innovating in this space for years.
“Harvard has had some of the most impactful research in this area,” Lamas-Linares said. “They have almost all of the components that constitute the end result of a quantum network, so it was an ideal partner for us to work with.”
Lamas-Linares declined to share the size of AWS’ investment in Harvard but said it was “quite a significant amount.” She said the focus should be on the research this investment will enable.
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AWS hopes to see Harvard researchers delve more deeply into topics like quantum memory, integrated photonics and quantum materials with the new funding, Lamas-Linares said.
Harvard students will also see a benefit from this alliance. AWS will help fund student recruitment, training, outreach and workforce development to help create what Lamas-Linares called a “Generation Q” of the future. Earlier this year, President Joe Biden issued an executive order to boost quantum-related education programs and workforce development initiatives.
“In quantum, we have a unique opportunity because the research is still so much in the early stages of basic discovery, yet also at the threshold of commercial implementation,” Evelyn Hu, co-director of the Harvard Quantum Initiative, said in a statement. “This is very unusual in science and technology. For students training in this field, especially, it’s important to get an appreciation of what science and engineering can do, but also what it needs to do to be scaled up, go to the outside world, and be relevant.”
A portion of the funding from AWS will also be used to upgrade the quantum fabrication capabilities of Harvard’s Center for Nanoscale Systems in Cambridge and the Science and Engineering Complex in Allston.
