Rigetti Computing, Inc. is a

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

-based developer of Superconducting quantum

integrated circuit An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip or simply chip, is a set of electronic circuits, consisting of various electronic components (such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors) and their interconnections. These components a ...

s used for quantum computers. Rigetti also develops a cloud platform called Forest that enables programmers to write quantum algorithms.

History

Rigetti Computing was founded in 2013 by Chad Rigetti, a physicist with a background in quantum computers from

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

, and studied under Michel Devoret. The company emerged from startup incubator

Y Combinator Y Combinator, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm launched in March 2005 which has been used to launch more than 5,000 companies. The accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, Californi ...

in 2014 as a so-called "spaceshot" company. Later that year, Rigetti also participated in The Alchemist Accelerator, a venture capital programme. By February 2016, Rigetti created its first quantum processor, a three-

qubit In quantum computing, a qubit () or quantum bit is a basic unit of quantum information—the quantum version of the classic binary bit physically realized with a two-state device. A qubit is a two-state (or two-level) quantum-mechanical syste ...

chip made using aluminum circuits on a silicon wafer. That same year, Rigetti raised

Series A A series A is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. It can be followed by the word round, investment or financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exchan ...

funding of US$24 million in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz. In November, the company secured Series B funding of $40 million in a round led by investment firm Vy Capital, along with additional funding from Andreessen Horowitz and other investors. Y Combinator also participated in both rounds. By Spring of 2017, Rigetti had advanced to testing eight-qubit quantum computers. In June, the company announced the release of Forest 1.0, a quantum computing platform designed to enable developers to create quantum algorithms. This was a major milestone. In October 2021, Rigetti announced plans to go public via a SPAC merger, with estimated valuation of around US$1.5 billion. This deal was expected to raise an additional US$458 million, bringing the total funding to US$658 million. The fund will be used to accelerate the company's growth, including scaling its quantum processors from 80 qubits to 1,000 qubits by 2024, and to 4,000 by 2026. The SPAC deal closed on 2 March 2022, and Rigetti began trading on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol RGTI. In December 2022, Subodh Kulkarni became president and CEO of the company. In July 2023 Rigetti launched a single-chip 84

quantum processor that can scale to even larger systems.

Products and technology

Rigetti Computing is a full-stack quantum computing company, a term that indicates that the company designs and fabricates quantum chips, integrates them with a controlling architecture, and develops software for programmers to use to build algorithms for the chips.

Forest cloud computing platform

The company hosts a cloud computing platform called Forest, which gives developers access to quantum processors so they can write quantum algorithms for testing purposes. The computing platform is based on a custom instruction language the company developed called Quil, which stands for Quantum Instruction Language. Quil facilitates hybrid quantum/classical computing, and programs can be built and executed using open source Python tools. As of June 2017, the platform allows coders to write quantum algorithms for a simulation of a quantum chip with 36 qubits.

Fab-1

The company operates a rapid prototyping fabrication ("fab") lab called Fab-1, designed to quickly create integrated circuits. Lab engineers design and generate experimental designs for 3D-integrated quantum circuits for qubit-based quantum hardware.

Recognition

The company was recognized in 2016 by X-Prize founder Peter Diamandis as being one of the three leaders in the quantum computing space, along with IBM and

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

MIT Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "''The''" in its name on April 23, 1998, under then pu ...

named the company one of the 50 smartest companies of 2017.

Locations

Rigetti Computing is headquartered in Berkeley, California, where it hosts developmental systems and cooling equipment. The company also operates its Fab-1 manufacturing facility in nearby Fremont.

References

External links

* {{authority control Computer companies of the United States Computer hardware companies Quantum information science Companies involved in quantum computing Companies based in Berkeley, California American companies established in 2013 Computer companies established in 2013 2013 establishments in California Companies listed on the Nasdaq Special-purpose acquisition companies