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Rigetti manages to develop an 80 qubit processor

The quantum computing startup Rigetti has several novelties in quantum computing hardware. For starters, its users can now access its next-generation chip, Aspen-11, 40 qubits and promising improved performance. In addition, several of your clients will be able to access your 80-bit processor, achieved by joining two 40-qubit chips, to prove it.

On the other hand, in Rigetti they have confirmed that they are exploring the possibility of allowing testers access a third energetic state of your superconducting hardware, which would allow you to convert your qubits into qutrits, and therefore, the manipulation of much more data with the hardware that already exists. To achieve this, Rigetti has modified its control software so that there is programmable access to one of the higher energy states.

In the case of traditional processors, progress is often measured in clock speed, core count, and power usage. In the case of quantum computers, one of the most critical measures is the error rate, since qubits lose track of their state while digital hardware does not. With Aspen-11, Rigetti ensures that there is a specific type of error, the reading of the state of the qubit, which has been cut in half.

In terms of clock speed, this translates to how fast you can pass signals that induce qubits to perform operations. In this, Rigetti assures that there is an improvement in speed of 2.5 times. This is a critical improvement, because qubits tend to lose their state over time. And the more operations you can perform in a given period of time, the more likely you are to achieve a complex set of manipulations before the processor loses its state.

This, added to the increase in the number of qubits, shows the improvements and evolution of the development in quantum computing. Of these, the 80-qubit Aspen-M represents a more significant advance, as Rigettu describes it as a chip assembled from two 40-qubit chips.

Although they are quite small, the qubits are large when compared to the functions of traditional process hardware. The signals that control, read, and write data to the qubits also require larger connections to the processor. This implies that there is probably a limit to how many qubits can be integrated into one piece of hardware.

That is why there are several companies that are already talking about the need to use more than one chip to increase qubit count. If with the step taken by Rigetti to solve the problem with the addition of chips, has solved a major problem in quantum computing. And if this solution can scale and give other chips from the union of more than two, it could offer an obvious roadmap for getting the qubit count up quickly.

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