Rigetti Announces Commercial Availability of Aspen-M System and Results of CLOPS Speed Tests 

BERKELEY, Calif., Feb. 15, 2022 — Rigetti Holdings, Inc. (“Rigetti”), a pioneer in hybrid quantum-classical computing, today announced the commercial availability of its 80-qubit quantum system, Aspen-M. The system is available today to the company’s direct and distribution customers through Rigetti Quantum Cloud Services (QCS). Rigetti also reported results of system speed tests run on Aspen-M.

Rigetti’s 80-qubit Aspen-M: a commercial multi-chip quantum processor.

“Last year we introduced the world to our proprietary multi-chip technology. We believe our approach to building quantum computers has tremendous advantages, including allowing us to meet the challenges of scaling to systems capable of solving real-world problems,” said Rigetti founder and CEO, Chad Rigetti. “Aspen-M is our first commercial system based on this multi-chip technology. Today, we are excited to make Aspen-M generally available to our customers and to release the initial results of system speed tests run on Aspen-M through our production platform.”

Aspen-M System Availability

Aspen-M is now available on Rigetti Quantum Cloud Services and will support a number of Rigetti collaborations taking place with both enterprise and public sector customers including Nasdaq, Deloitte, DARPA and the U.S. Department of Energy. Beginning today, Aspen-M will also be available to end users on Amazon Braket, marking the latest in a series of increasingly powerful Rigetti systems offered through the service since Amazon Braket’s launch in 2019. In addition, Rigetti expects the 80-qubit system to be available through Azure Quantum, Strangeworks QC and Zapata’s Orquestra platform in the coming months.

Aspen-M’s System Speed Tests

Circuit layer operations per second, or CLOPS, characterizes quantum processing speeds inclusive of gate speeds, reprogrammability, and co-processing capabilities, among other factors. Rigetti has customarily tracked gate speed as a key speed metric. CLOPS is designed to characterize how many circuits can run on a quantum computing system in a given unit of time. It leverages the quantum resources on a device to run a collection of circuits as fast as possible, while stressing all parts of the execution pipeline. CLOPS was initially developed and published by IBM in October 2021.

Rigetti reported today its results based on CLOPS for its most recent 40-qubit system, Aspen-11, and for its 80-qubit Aspen-M system. Conducting tests based on 100 shots, as set forth in the original published definition, the 40-qubit Aspen-11 system demonstrated a CLOPS of 844, while the 80-qubit Aspen-M system demonstrated a CLOPS of 892. These results suggest that current Rigetti systems perform as well or better on this CLOPS speed test as the number of qubits in the system increases. By comparison, IBM’s published CLOPS scores for systems with 5, 27, and 65 qubits were 1419, 951, and 753, respectively, as of the October 2021 publishing date.

To reflect what users can potentially expect in typical use cases, Rigetti also evaluated CLOPS using 1000 shots. In this case, Aspen-11 performed at 7512 CLOPS and Aspen-M performed at 8333 CLOPS, demonstrating that comparable or better system speed persists at both higher shot counts and higher qubit counts. These speed tests were conducted using the production Rigetti QCS environment.

CLOPS is calculated as M × K × S × D / time taken where: M = number of templates = 100; K = number of parameter updates = 10; S = number of shots = 100 (or 1000); and D = number of QV layers = log2 QV.  To Rigetti’s knowledge, CLOPS as a speed test has not been investigated or verified by any independent third party.  In addition, while Rigetti applied the above formula in testing the speed of Aspen-M and Aspen-11, there is no guarantee that Rigetti applied the test in the same way as IBM and, as a result, any variability in the application of the test as between Rigetti, IBM or others in the industry that may apply CLOPS in the future could render CLOPS scores incomparable and actual relative performance may materially differ from reported results.

Other than IBM, others in the industry have not announced CLOPS as a speed test. As a result, the speed of other competitors as measured by CLOPS is not currently known. In addition, the solution accuracy provided by quantum computers is another key factor, and a quantum computer that may be slower may be preferable to users if it provides a more accurate answer for certain applications. Moreover, the relative leads reflected by speed tests such as CLOPS can change as new generations of quantum computers are introduced by industry participants and, consequently, any advantages cannot be considered permanent and can be expected to change from time to time. Current CLOPS tests may not be indicative of the results of future tests.

About Rigetti Computing

Rigetti Computing is a pioneer in full-stack quantum computing. The company has operated quantum computers over the cloud since 2017 and serves global enterprise, government and research clients through its Rigetti Quantum Cloud Services platform. The proprietary quantum-classical infrastructure provides ultra-low latency integration with public and private clouds for high-performance practical quantum computing. Rigetti has developed the industry’s first multi-chip quantum processor for scalable quantum computing systems. The Company designs and manufactures its chips in-house at Fab-1, the industry’s first dedicated and integrated quantum device manufacturing facility. Rigetti was founded in 2013 by Chad Rigetti and today employs more than 140 people with offices in the United States, UK and Australia. Learn more at www.rigetti.com.

About Supernova Partners Acquisition Company II

Supernova II is led by Michael Clifton, who was most recently a technology investor at The Carlyle Group; Robert Reid, a long-time senior partner at Blackstone; Spencer Rascoff, a serial entrepreneur who co-founded Hotwire, Zillow, dot.LA and Pacaso and who led Zillow as CEO for nearly a decade; and Alexander Klabin, founder and CEO of Ancient and former managing partner, co-CIO and co-founder of Senator Investment Group.

Source: Supernova Partners Acquisition Company II