Rigetti Computing, a leader in full-stack quantum-classical computing, recently announced the launch of its latest flagship, the 84-qubit Ankaa-3 quantum computer. With its superior performance and a series of major technological upgrades, the new system marks an important milestone in the field of superconducting quantum computing.
Technology upgrades and performance improvements
The Ankaa-3 system has undergone extensive hardware redesign to achieve superior performance. Enhancements to the stack include a new cryogenic hardware design, a complete improvement in the layout of the qubit circuitry, a precise qubit frequency positioning technique called Alternating-Bias Assisted Annealing (ABAA), and a flexible gate architecture with precise control. These technological upgrades have resulted in Ankaa-3 achieving a median 99.5% fidelity in two-qubit gates, which is a significant achievement.
Integration of cloud service platforms
The Ankaa-3 system is now available to partners through Rigetti's Quantum Cloud Platform (QCS), with plans to land on Amazon Braket and Microsoft Azure platforms in the first quarter of 2025. This means that users can take advantage of a more accurate, universal iSWAP gate (an iSWAP gate is a gate used in a quantum computer to swap two qubit states and give them a special tag while swapping. This kind of gate is important in quantum computing because it helps us to do a lot of complex calculations and operations. To perform various algorithm studies, where the median gate time is 72 nanoseconds. Faster (median 56 nanoseconds) and more specialized fSim gates are useful for specific algorithms such as random circuit sampling, which has been proven on Google's Willow system.
Figure:Rigetti Computing launch 84 bits Ankaa-3 quantum computer
The application of quantum computers in cloud computing platforms has broad prospects
Hybrid Quantum Classical Cloud Computing (HQCC): Quantum cloud computing combines quantum and classical computing resources, and this hybrid architecture is the core model of current quantum computing cloud services. It has the potential for distributed quantum task processing and is gradually moving towards deep integration of high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI). This architecture receives user-submitted quantum circuits through classic cloud service interface APIs and assigns tasks to quantum processors for execution, improving task efficiency and availability.
Breakthroughs in scientific research: As a scientific research tool, the quantum computing cloud platform effectively combines scientific and technological needs with the advantages of quantum computing, and is expected to make breakthroughs in solving some challenging scientific problems. For example, in the fields of chemistry, biology, and physics, quantum computing can handle complex computational problems such as material design, molecular interaction studies, quantum dynamics simulations, and more.
Mining the potential of the industry: Quantum cloud computing services are not only explored and applied in scientific research, but also penetrated into the application research of many industries, such as healthcare, finance, energy, etc. The application of quantum computing cloud services is expected to be the first to be realized in these areas, providing more efficient solutions for the industry.
Future outlook
Rigetti plans to launch a new 36-qubit system in 2025 and more than 100 qubits by the end of the year, both of which aim to triple the error rate. These systems are designed to accelerate progress towards fault-tolerant quantum computing and real-world applications.
The launch of Rigetti Computing's Ankaa-3 quantum computer not only demonstrates the company's leadership in superconducting quantum computing, but also demonstrates its expertise and technical prowess in the manufacture of high-performance quantum computers. With the continuous advancement of quantum computing technology, Ankaa-3 is expected to open up new possibilities for quantum algorithm research and practical applications.
