How Amazon plans to catch Google and Microsoft in the quantum computing race

Published

3 months ago

May 9, 2025

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Another major player has entered the quantum-computing race: Amazon.

The tech giant is the latest to make waves in the field with the February announcement of Ocelot, its own quantum chip. Amazon joins fierce competition from familiar rivals in cloud computing as Google, Microsoft and others race after what they say could be their next frontier.

While Amazon is widely known as an e-commerce giant, its business took a pivotal and profitable turn in 2006 with the launch of Amazon Web Services. AWS is now a more than $100 billion business and a key part of why Amazon is worth over $2 trillion. The company sees quantum as the next major growth area for its cloud services.

“There’s a … strong business case for AWS or Amazon to get involved with quantum computing,” Oskar Painter, director of quantum hardware for Amazon Web Services, told CNBC. “Quantum computing is very much in line with that sort of business model where you would have off-premise quantum computing resources that can be made accessible through the cloud.”

Part of the hype with quantum computing is the perceived payoff down the line. While still years away from commercial applications, McKinsey projects quantum could be a $173 billion market by 2040.

“The opportunity to build just a supercharged part of AWS that can crack incredibly difficult problems, whether it’s related to drug discovery or cybersecurity … that is an opportunity for them to charge a lot more,” said Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management.

CNBC’s Kate Rooney got an exclusive look inside the AWS Center for Quantum Computing located at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. Founded in 2019, Amazon’s partnership with the university is starting to yield results, as it showcased the Ocelot quantum processor. Amazon says the chip, which it designed and fabricated in-house, uses a scalable architecture that reduces error correction by up to 90 percent. That’s a key obstacle in developing these machines. Google’s Willow chip, which was unveiled in December, also demonstrated improvements in this area.

Ocelot uses “cat qubits,” named after the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment. The company says the design intrinsically suppresses certain forms of errors, reducing the resources required for quantum error correction.

“The heart of these quantum computing systems … it’s really this quantum processor” Painter said. “The details of how that happens is really what differentiates one hardware platform from another – and really is where the secret sauce is and where all the intellectual property is.”

Munster said quantum-computing should be thought of as a new vertical within the AWS cloud business.

“In the end, it will probably be solved and monetized through one of these big cloud platforms,” Munster said. “And AWS has a great shot at being successful there.”

Watch the video as Kate Rooney goes behind-the-scenes at Amazon and learns how the company is taking on Google and Microsoft in the quantum computing race.

Technology

Trump says he asked for 20% cut from Nvidia, calls H20 an ‘obsolete’ chip

Published

3 hours ago

August 11, 2025

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Trump says he asked for 20% cut from Nvidia, calls H20 an 'obsolete' chip

U.S. President Donald Trump (L) listens as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks in the Cross Hall of the White House during an event on “Investing in America” on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Andrew Harnik | Getty Images

President Donald Trump on Monday said that he initially asked Nvidia for a 20% cut of the chipmaker’s sales to China, but the number came down to 15% after CEO Jensen Huang negotiated with him.

The comments came after news broke over the weekend that Nvidia agreed to pay the federal government a 15% cut in return for receiving export control licenses that will allow it to once again sell the H20 chip to China and Chinese companies. Nvidia’s Huang visited Trump in the White House on Friday.

“I said, ‘listen, I want 20% if I’m going to approve this for you, for the country,'” Trump said in a press conference in Washington.

Trump said that Nvidia’s H20 is an “old chip that China already has” and is “obsolete.” He compared the H20 chip to Nvidia’s current fastest artificial intelligence chip, which is called Blackwell, and said that he wouldn’t allow those to be sold to China without significant downgrades, such as a 30% to 50% reduction in performance.

“The Blackwell is super-duper advanced. I wouldn’t make a deal with that,” Trump said, adding that it was possible to make a deal for a “somewhat enhanced in a negative way” version of Blackwell.

“That’s the latest and the greatest in the world. Nobody has it. They won’t have it for five years,” Trump said.

One reason for the U.S. export controls is fear that providing advanced chips to China could allow the foreign power to leapfrog the U.S. in AI capabilities. Many have said that could pose a threat to the national security of the U.S.

Trump said that China already has chips with some similar capabilities to the H20.

Huang has said that it is better for U.S. national security if Chinese AI developers use U.S. technology, and that denying them access to Nvidia chips would actually encourage the Chinese chip industry to develop and catch up.

“He’s selling a essentially old chip,” Trump said. “Huawei has a similar chip.”

The H20 is a Chinese-specific chip that has had its performance slowed down. It is related to Nvidia’s H100 and H200 chips that are used in the U.S. The H20 was introduced after the Biden administration implemented export controls on AI chips in 2023.

In April, the Trump administration said it would require a license to export the H20 chip, and in May, Huang said that “effectively closed” the market off to Nvidia. Huang said that Nvidia was expecting to sell about $8 billion in H20 chips in the July quarter before sales were stopped.

“While we haven’t shipped H20 to China for months, we hope export control rules will let America compete in China and worldwide,” an Nvidia spokesperson told CNBC on Monday.

Trump on Monday also said that Huang plans to visit him again to negotiate export licenses for the Blackwell chips.

“I think he’s coming to see me again about that,” Trump said.

A White House official confirmed to CNBC that AMD, the second-place AI chip maker, will also pay 15% to receive an export license for its China-focused AI chip, the Instinct MI308.

WATCH: Nvidia, AMD to pay U.S. 15% of AI chip sales in China to secure export licenses

Technology

Crypto exchange Bullish raises IPO size, seeks nearly $5 billion valuation

Published

3 hours ago

August 11, 2025

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Crypto exchange Bullish raises IPO size, seeks nearly billion valuation

Pavlo Gonchar | SOPA Images | AP

Peter Thiel-backed cryptocurrency exchange Bullish raised the size of its initial public offering.

Bullish is aiming to raise $990 million, offering 30 million shares priced between $32 and $33 apiece, and targeting a valuation of $4.8 billion, according to a Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company, led by former New York Stock Exchange president Tom Farley, had previously marketed 20.3 million shares at a proposed range between $28 and $31 a share and sought a $4.2 billion valuation, per a filing last week.

Bullish granted its underwriters, led by JPMorgan, Jefferies and Citigroup, a 30-day option to sell an additional 4.5 million shares. Bullish stock will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker symbol “BLSH.”

BlackRock and Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment Management have indicated interest in purchasing up to $200 million of the shares, according to the updated filing.

Bullish, which also owns the crypto media site CoinDesk, is the latest crypto firm to join the public market, reflecting reinvigorated capital markets driven by investor confidence and increasing regulatory support and clarity from Washington. The stablecoin issuer Circle made its highly successful debut in June. In May, Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital uplisted to the Nasdaq and stock and crypto trading app eToro opened trading to the public.

Crypto custody startup BitGo has confidentially filed for a U.S. listing as has Gemini, the crypto exchange run by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss.

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

Technology

Amazon tops 100 satellites after weather-delayed Kuiper launch

Published

5 hours ago

August 11, 2025

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Amazon tops 100 satellites after weather-delayed Kuiper launch

After four previous scrubs or delays in a row since August 7th SpaceX launches Amazon KF-02 Kuipeer Satellites after the 5th attempt August 11th 2025 at 8:35 AM SLC-40 Cape Canaveral, Brevard County, Florida USA.

Scott Schilke| SipaUSA |AP

Amazon shipped another batch of internet-beaming satellites into orbit on Monday atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, after four previous launch attempts were interrupted by weather issues.

Monday’s launch is the fourth Kuiper mission, and Amazon now has 102 satellites in orbit.

The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 8:35 a.m. ET. Roughly an hour after launch, SpaceX confirmed all 24 of Amazon’s Kuiper satellites were successfully deployed.

The mission was originally scheduled for last Thursday, but SpaceX was forced to scrub the launch, along with three more attempts over the past few days due to rainfall.

For the second time, Amazon turned to Elon Musk‘s SpaceX, its chief competitor in the low-earth orbit satellite market, for help building out its constellation.