Quantum News Nexus

Rigetti Computing announced that general availability of its Cepheus-1-108Q quantum computer, a 108-qubit quantum computing system built from 12 nine-qubit chiplets, is delayed until “around the end of the first quarter of 2026,” according to a press release.

The system had been expected to be ready by the end of 2025, according to roadmap information released by Rigetti when it reported its most recent quarterly earnings last November 

In this week’s press release, Rigetti CEO Dr. Subodh Kulkarni stated, “While we are making strong progress with Cepheus-1-108Q, we are taking more time to test and optimize the system to ensure the performance is up to our standards. We have a clear understanding of what we need to do to achieve 99.5% median two-qubit gate fidelity, and are well on our way. Building higher qubit count systems can uncover new challenges. We encountered complexities with our tunable couplers and have decided to run another iteration of our chip to further optimize the system and improve fidelity.”

He added, “We continue to improve our system performance, achieving a median two-qubit gate fidelity of 99% on our 108-qubit system, 99.7% on our 9-qubit system, and 99.6% on our 36-qubit system. This underscores our unwavering commitment to delivering the highest performing systems for our partners and customers.”

The new system will be Rigetti’s highest qubit count system to date, with the company also claiming it will be “the industry’s largest modular quantum computing system.”

I guess you can read into Kulkarni’s statement what you want, but this delay does not seem to be a major setback for a company that has experienced a few in recent years. Kulkarni came aboard at Rigetti as CEO in December 2022 with a promise to focus the company’s resources and energies on improving fidelity and overall quality, and this apparently brief delay sounds more like a choice made with those priorities in mind. Additionally, don’t overlook the fidelity numbers Rigetti already has achieved, and its claim that it has a “clear understanding” of how to hit 99.5% on the new system. That would be a major threshold crossed.

Having said all that, all eyes will be on Rigetti as the first quarter wraps up to see if it delivers on the new target, as well as the fidelity goal.

Image by freepik.

Quantum News Nexus is a site from freelance writer and editor Dan O’Shea that covers quantum computing, quantum sensing, quantum networking, quantum-safe security, and more. You can find him on X @QuantumNewsGuy and doshea14@gmail.com.