Rigetti announces the world's first multi-chip quantum processor

The company expects to make an 80-qubit quantum system by the end of the year

Rigetti Computing announced on Tuesday that it has developed the world ' s first multi-chip quantum processor which is based on a proprietary modular architecture and could help solve key challenges in scaling toward building an entirely fault-tolerant quantum computer.

According to Rigetti, its new technology involves building smaller collections of qubits on chips that can be physically connected to create a single functional processor.

The company expects to create an 80-qubit quantum system by the end of the year. The system powered by the new multi-chip processor technology would be more than twice as powerful as its existing system. Rigetti says it will make this system available on its Quantum Cloud Services platform.

Quantum computers work in a fundamentally different way than classical computers. Quantum computers use qubits (or quantum bits) as the basic building blocks of computing. Today's quantum computers contain only a few dozens of qubits as any attempt to add more qubits makes them prone to environmental noise, thereby eventually disturbing the computing process and resulting in erroneous calculations.

The qubit count in Rigetti ' s current processors is 31, while IBM's latest is over 60.

Rigetti's Aspen quantum chips are manufactured using a "superconducting quantum computing" technique. The qubits in these chips are made from superconducting materials and have to be kept at temperatures of near zero.

"We ' ve developed a fundamentally new approach to scaling quantum computers," said Chad Rigetti, founder and CEO of Rigetti Computing.

"Our proprietary innovations in chip design and manufacturing have unlocked what we believe is the fastest path to building the systems needed to run practical applications and error correction."

Rigetti's multi-qubit chip connects multiple identical dies into a large-scale quantum chip, which helps to substantially reduce the engineering complexity and allows for accelerated, predictable scaling. This multi-chip approach enables researchers to avoid degradation in qubit quality or die yield and allows future quantum systems to scale in multiplicative ways.

Rigetti makes all of its chips at its California-based captive quantum foundry.

"Scalability is a central objective across the entire quantum computing industry. Rigetti is the first to demonstrate an elegant, effective solution to this major technical challenge," said Marko Lončar, a Harvard professor of electrical engineering working on quantum hardware.

California-based Rigetti Computing is one of many startups currently competing in the quantum computing business, alongside technology giants such as Google, Honeywell and IBM.

Rigetti is also building UK ' s first commercially available quantum computer, in partnership with other organisations such as Oxford Instruments, the University of Edinburgh, Phasecraft and Standard Chartered Bank.

Backed by £10 million from the government and industry, the machine will enable researchers and businesses to unleash new opportunities promised by quantum computing in industries ranging from finance and pharmaceuticals to aerospace and transportation.