HANGZHOU — A Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) research institute and Aliyun, Alibaba's cloud computing subsidiary, have released a cloud platform for quantum computing.

The platform was announced online by Aliyun and the CAS innovative center for quantum information and quantum physics (Shanghai) at a cloud computing conference Wednesday in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province, where Alibaba is based.

The platform will offer users a development and testing environment for cloud-based quantum algorithms.

Pan Jianwei, lead scientist of China's quantum experiments at space scale and a member of the academy, said the platform would help industrialize quantum computing.

"If a classic computer is compared to a bicycle in computation speed, a quantum computer is like a jet," said Pan.

Cooperation between CAS and Aliyun dates back to July 2015, when a quantum computing laboratory was launched. In May 2017, the world's first prototype quantum computer was developed by the laboratory and two Chinese universities.