This past December, Amazon announced that it was launching a new quantum computing service, called Braket, joining the ranks of tech giants like Google, Microsoft and IBM. However, it quickly became clear that Amazon was not creating its own technology, but offering that of other companies to its customers through the cloud.

The story gets even stranger when you consider that the purpose of the service is not to do anything of any immediate practical value, but to allow “scientists, researchers, and developers to begin experimenting” with quantum technology. The companies providing the hardware, D-Wave, IonQ, and Rigetti, are themselves fledgling companies.

So why would Amazon promote, with great fanfare, a technology it doesn’t own and that doesn’t really work to customers who can’t use it to solve any practical problems? The reason is that we are entering a new era of innovation in which it is no longer enough to simply move fast and break things. We need to do more than just adapt. We need to learn to prepare. Read More