AWS focuses on quantum computing and containerisation

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has revealed the availability of an innovative service in the field of quantum computing, together with a new open source Linux-based operating system that has been built from the ground up to run containers.

Firstly to the general availability of Amazon Braket, a managed service that helps developers and researchers get started with quantum computing, providing development tools, simulators and access to a diverse set of quantum hardware.

Braket is essentially a single development environment that lets developers tap AWS cloud resources to run quantum computing algorithms, reducing the need to set up and manage their own infrastructure. 

It is aimed at a wide-ranging audience, from those just beginning to explore the possibilities of quantum computing to others who are already familiar with different quantum technologies and are ready to use it as a research tool.

Customers can get started quickly, using familiar tools like Jupyter notebooks to access pre-installed tools that can be used to design quantum algorithms, visualise results and collaborate with others. 

It offers cross-platform developer tools that allow customers to design their own quantum algorithms or choose from a growing library of pre-built algorithms, providing a consistent experience so that they no longer need to learn multiple development environments. 

They can then run, test and troubleshoot their algorithms on quantum computer simulators that use Amazon EC2 computing resources. When ready, they have the option of running their algorithm on the quantum computer of their choice without having to engage multiple providers or committing to a single technology. Quantum hardware partners include systems from D-Wave, IonQ and Rigetti. 

The potential benefits of this new service were reinforced by Florian Neukart, Director Advanced Technologies and IT Strategy at the Volkswagen Group, who said: “For the first time, Amazon Braket makes it possible to address and use quantum computers of different service providers via a standardised programming interface. This offers considerable opportunities for accelerating development work and improving our quantum algorithms. 

“We are convinced that Amazon Braket can help deliver the benefits of quantum computing to society and industry even faster”.

Also now generally available is Bottlerocket, a new open source Linux-based operating system that is purpose-built to run containers.

Developed as an open source project on GitHub, Bottlerocket only includes the software needed to run containers and comes with a transactional update mechanism. These properties enable customers to use container orchestrators to manage OS updates with minimal disruptions, with the focus very much on improved security.

Most containers today run on general-purpose operating systems that are built to support applications packaged in a variety of formats. Such operating systems include hundreds of packages and need frequent security and maintenance updates. However, because Bottlerocket has been stripped of everything apart from what’s strictly needed to run containers, the attack surface has effectively been shrunk. 

At the same time, fewer packages are installed on Bottlerocket’s underlying system, making it easier to keep the operating system up-to-date, whilst also reducing the chance of problems caused by dependencies.

AWS product manager Samartha Chandrashekar outlined the rationale behind Bottlerocket, explaining: “As our customers increasingly adopt containers to run their workloads, we saw a need for a Linux distribution designed from the ground up to run containers with a focus on security, operations and manageability at scale. Customers needed an operating system that would give them the ability to manage thousands of hosts running containers with automation”.

AWS-provided builds of Bottlerocket are covered under AWS Support plans, with the first major release receiving security updates and bug fixes for three years.