Rigetti Computing granted Air Force Office of Scientific Research award

Rigetti Computing (RGTI) was granted an Air Force Office of Scientific Research award to further develop its breakthrough chip fabrication technology, Alternating-Bias Assisted Annealing. The $5.48 million Rigetti-led consortium, including Iowa State University, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, the University of Connecticut, and *Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, aims to develop a detailed understanding of how ABAA impacts the chip on a microscopic level – which will shed light on defects in superconducting qubits and open new avenues for understanding and mitigating them. Addressing defects in superconducting qubits is a fundamental challenge in building large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computers. Last year, Rigetti introduced ABAA which entails applying a series of alternating low-voltage pulses at room temperature to the oxide barrier of the Josephson junction, a critical part of Rigetti’s superconducting qubits. Rigetti researchers discovered that this technique enables qubit frequencies to be precisely targeted prior to chip packaging. This improves the fidelity of two-qubit gates and the scalability of the technology. Unlike more complicated solutions that address the problem of tuning frequency, which often require laser trimming of the chip, ABAA is a simple and scalable process that only requires sending pulses of voltage to the chip.