Rigetti Computing, Inc. (“Rigetti” or the “Company”), a pioneer in full-stack quantum-classical computing, announced today that it was selected to participate in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI). The primary goal of QBI is to determine if any approach to quantum computing can achieve utility-scale operation by 2033. QBI will use a multi-stage approach, Stages A, B, and C, to assess the proposed concepts, with each stage representing an increased level of scrutiny. Rigetti will advance to Stage A, a 6-month performance period focused on the Company’s utility-scale quantum computer concept worth up to $1 million upon completion of program milestones.

University of Arizona College of Engineering researchers Christos Gagatsos and Bane Vasic received two grants from the federal government to advance novel areas in quantum information. Gagatsos was awarded $1.4 million from the U.S. Army Research Office to investigate the application of quantum error correction in magnetic field sensing, and Vasic was awarded $600,000 from the National Science Foundation to stabilize quantum computing with error correction codes.

In an industry first, Photonic Inc. has introduced a new, low-overhead family of Quantum Low-Density Parity Check (QLDPC) codes that can efficiently perform both quantum computation and error correction, using materially fewer quantum bits (qubits) than traditional surface code approaches. This milestone work will accelerate the timeline to useful quantum computing.