What are Quantum Chips?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has unveiled its first quantum computing chip, called Ocelot, marking the company’s entry into quantum hardware. Ocelot is a prototype designed to tackle one of the biggest hurdles in quantum computing – the high error rates – by using an innovative approach to quantum error correction built directly into the chip. Announced in February 2025, Ocelot uses a novel “cat qubit” architecture (inspired by Schrödinger’s cat) that intrinsically suppresses certain errors, which could reduce the resources needed for error correction by up to 90% compared to conventional methods. To understand why this is significant, let’s break down the key concepts: what qubits are, why quantum error correction is crucial, how cat qubits work, what the Ocelot chip’s design entails, and what Amazon’s leap into quantum computing means for the industry.