Rigetti Computing awarded SBRI grant funded by NQCC for quantum computer

Rigetti was awarded a Small Business Research Initiative SBRI grant delivered SBRI grant and funded by the National Quantum Computing Centre NQCC to develop and deliver a quantum computer to the NQCC. Rigetti proposes to deploy a 24-qubit quantum computer based on the Company’s fourth generation Ankaa class architecture. The system will be deployed at NQCC’s Harwell Campus, which is due to open in 2024 and will serve as NQCC’s landmark facility to support world-class quantum computing research in the UK. The proposed system will feature the hallmarks of Rigetti’s recently launched 84-qubit Ankaa-2 system, including tunable couplers and a square lattice. This new chip architecture enables faster gate times, higher fidelity, and greater connectivity compared to Rigetti’s previous generations of quantum processing units QPUs The Ankaa-2 system has achieved a 98% median 2-qubit fidelity, a 2.5x improvement in error performance compared to the Company’s previous QPUs, and a 2-qubit gate time of 68 nanoseconds – the shortest gate time demonstrated by a Rigetti QPU.