Amazon unveiled a prototype quantum processor with a novel architecture that promises to significantly reduce the resources required to enable a future era in which ultra-powerful computing solves some of the world’s biggest problems.

Amazon has become the third tech giant in as many months to announce a breakthrough in quantum computing - a technology that promises vast processing power but is beset by technical difficulties.

Amazon Web Services has unveiled Ocelot, its first quantum computing chip, which aims to tackle one of the biggest barriers in the field: error correction.