Rigetti Awarded Millions From Air Force For Quantum Computing Chips

The United States Air Force wants to be on the leading edge of quantum computing chips. And they’re giving millions to a publicly traded company in America to do it.

‍What’s happening:‍

• Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ: RGTI) has been awarded a new $5.48M USD grant from the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research for accelerating the development of their ABBA chip fabricating technology
  

Why it matters:‍

• Rigetti Computing’s ABBA chips could be a potential major technical breakthrough for scaling the performance of large quantum computers, in large part due to their ability to reduce two level system defects that can dramatically hinder qubit performance
  

Going deeper:‍

• The new grant from the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research will go towards Rigetti Computing advancing their research around ABBA chips and reducing defects with academic partners including Iowa State University, royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and the University of Connecticut
  
• This is not the first time the United States Air Force has collaborated with a publicly listed quantum computing company, previously cutting a deal with IonQ (NYSE: ION) to advance quantum networks infrastructure

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