Quantum News Nexus

Rigetti Computing appointed a couple of company veterans to new C-level roles, and created a new dedicated Systems Delivery organization, all part of a new operating structure aimed at pumping some energy into Rigetti’s ability to scale deployment of on-premises quantum systems and improve operational execution on other fronts.

These moves represent the latest chapters in Rigetti’s comeback story following layoffs, the departure of founder Chad Rigetti, and other issues related to the company’s SPAC merger that occurred a little over three and half years ago. 

That comeback has been led by Chad Rigetti’s successor, President and CEO Subodh Kulkarni, who focused the company on fidelity improvements efforts and market programs like an effort to sell a QPU-only package to organizations that possess their own dilution refrigerators and other gear. But, survivors of the earlier pre-SPAC deal era have played instrumental roles as well, and two of them just started new jobs at Rigetti.

David Rivas, who has been CTO at Rigetti since February 2023 and has worked at the company since 2019, has been named to the newly-created post of Chief Operating Officer. In this newly created role, Rivas will oversee fabrication operations, systems delivery, software engineering, applications, business development, government programs, supply chain, and facilities.

Meanwhile, Andrew Bestwick, Ph.D., who has been with Rigetti since way back in 2015 and has served as Senior Vice President, Quantum Systems, since 2024, is following in Rivas’ footsteps as Rigetti’s latest CTO. Dr. Bestwick has led the architecture of Rigetti’s Cepheus-class multi-chip systems and will oversee quantum processor development, chip fabrication development, and hardware engineering. (If you want to know his fashion tendencies circa 2018, check out this story.)

After spending much of the last few years focusing on improving fidelity, Rigetti now expects to achieve 99.5% median two-qubit gate fidelity on Cepheus-1-108Q later this year. So, now, more attention is turning to market execution, and creating a dedicated Systems Delivery organization is proof of that shift. 

Rigetti’s announcement of this week’s changes said it is now seeing increasing demand for customer deployments of on-premises systems, ranging from 9-qubit Novera systems to large-scale 108-qubit Cepheus-class systems. “Historically, installation and customer support activities have been supported within the engineering organization,” Rigetti said, but the new operating structure “creates dedicated leadership and resources for system deployment and customer success.”

“Rigetti’s growing deployment activity makes this the right time to establish a dedicated organization focused on delivering and supporting systems for customers,” said Dr. Kulkarni. “This structure gives our commercial and operational teams clear, end-to-end accountability for scaling system delivery, while giving our technology organization even greater focus on quantum processor innovation and performance. David brings deep experience building the operational capabilities that support our systems and customers, and Andrew brings exceptional technical leadership to our chiplet-based architecture. Together, we believe these appointments position Rigetti to execute across both customer deployments and our technology roadmap.”

This week’s changes come shortly after Rigetti announced its second quarter earnings results. In short, revenue continues to rise, the company sold another QPU, and is in line for federal government aid, while its net loss is growing due to all the expense and investments we have come to expect from superconducting quantum commuting companies at this stage.

Image: The Rigetti Computing Novera QPU in Horizon Quantum’s office. (Source: Horizon Quantum)

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.