May 26, 2026 • 38 mins
In Episode 141, Mike Piech, Vice President of Business Development at Rigetti Computing, joins Patrick and Ciprian to talk hardware. Rigetti recently announced their 108-qubit system and is targeting 99.5% two-qubit gate fidelity by end of year, with a thousand physical qubits in sight by 2029. Mike breaks down why superconducting qubits are built on decades of semiconductor manufacturing know-how, what the Josephson junction actually does and why non-linearity is the key to isolating a usable qubit state, and why a macroscopic circuit behaving quantumly is one of the more remarkable phenomena in modern physics. The conversation also covers Rigetti's international work — including a 36-qubit system at the UK National Quantum Computing Centre and a new 108-qubit deployment in India with CDAC. The time to start learning quantum is now.
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SPEAKER_00 (00:10):
Episode 141.
I suppose it is every day youdid.
Physics behind the job.
What it's going to take to reachthe thousand cubic milestone.
(00:30):
Welcome to Entangle Things, yourquantum computing podcast,
hosted by Patrick and Cipri.
SPEAKER_03 (00:40):
Hey Ciprien, how are you doing?
SPEAKER_01 (00:43):
Hey Patrick.
I'm doing great.
Looking forward for anotherepisode of Entangled Things.
SPEAKER_03 (00:47):
Oh, not nothing not to be disappointed today.
So, Mike, do you mindintroducing yourself to our
audience?
SPEAKER_02 (00:53):
Sure.
Hi, everyone.
My name is Mike Peach.
I'm vice president of businessdevelopment at Reggetti
Computing.
We make quantum computers, isthe simplest uh sort of intro
statement there.
So I will uh I'll pause at thatmoment and uh you can guide me
as to how you'd like me tofurther take the introduction
here.
I can go a little bit into mybackground, I can give a little
(01:15):
intro to Reggetti itself, wecan, and then we can we can go
in a whole bunch of directions.
SPEAKER_03 (01:20):
I I think we start with the Raghetti, because uh
unbelievably, even after fiveyears, you were the first guest
from your company, and we havebeen remiss in in pigeonholing
you guys and getting you to uhto show up for the podcast.
So that's on us.
But finally we have you guyshere.
So can you talk about like howyou guys are approaching the
(01:40):
quest to build quantumcomputers, modality, you know,
challenges that you see?
Just what what are you guys upto?
Because uh you've been missingfrom our palette up till now.
SPEAKER_02 (01:51):
Got it.
Sure thing, and no worries.
So, you know, we're all of us inthe in this business uh
appreciate that it's very muchemerging and and nascent and uh
all of those those kinds ofadjectives of um of earliness.
Uh so anyway, so yes, ReggettComputing founded in 2013 by
(02:13):
Chad Raghetti and a small teamthere.
We we came out of Y Combinator,uh so in some ways a classic uh
Silicon Valley type of uh uhgestation there.
Um and while today we're stillrelatively small, we're 160
people, uh we're relatively oldby startup standards, so we've
(02:38):
uh had a kind of measured path,as it were.
There was uh there were a coupleof little uh changes and and
zigs and zags along the way, asas with as with any company.
Um interestingly, so first off,you said modality, so we are
superconducting, and uh so youknow Chad Raghetti, our founder,
(03:02):
uh studied at Yale with MichelleDevere, one of the uh one of the
three recipients of the NobelPhysics Prize last year, so uh
along with uh John Martinez andJohn Clark.
So uh very much part of that uhthat that early cohort that
really kind of established uhsuperconducting and and and gave
(03:26):
it a lot of that early momentum,which continues to this day via
IBM and Google and Amazon andthe Chinese government and and
and and a few companies inEurope as well.
So the sort of the investmentand energy going into
superconducting uh among themodalities is is certainly
(03:48):
important, I'll say, for anybodywho's kind of getting into the
area or uh sort of tracking it.
Uh so just a couple of quickstats to uh catch us up to 2026.
So I mentioned we're 160 people.
We are public, we went public asa SPAC in 2022 uh along with a
(04:09):
few other companies.
So um interestingly, in a mousethat roared sort of uh
configuration there, we're worthuh as of yesterday, at least
around six billion dollars inmarket capitalization.
Um and you know, along that13-year journey, we've had a
number of you know, industryfirsts and a number of moments
(04:30):
of industry leadership.
So we built the industry's firstquantum dedicated fab, which is
uh in Fremont, California.
Our headquarters is in Berkeley,California.
So California company, you know,Silicon Valley-ish kinds of
routes.
Uh we were among the first toput quantum compute cycles in
the cloud.
We're uh an inaugural uh uhprovider in Amazon's bracket
(04:56):
offering.
We're also available onMicrosoft Azure Quantum today,
as well as provide a directconnection in a in that uh that
cloud model.
But uh we also focus on uhdelivering on-premises quantum
compute systems.
So uh within that context ofyes, the industry is early.
(05:18):
Um for the most part, commercialcompanies are not acquiring
on-premises quantum systemstoday.
The folks who are actuallybuying these systems are
typically national laboratoriesand universities.
Um, but uh we're our ourflagship system today is 108
(05:39):
qubits, uh operating at uh about99.1, 99.2% two qubit gate
fidelity, looking to bring thatup to about 99.5 by the end of
this year, and we're we'retargeting breaching the thousand
qubit mark, thousand physicalqubits to be clear, uh uh in
(06:00):
within just a couple of yearsaround 2029.
So let me pause there, as I knowthere was a little bit of a, you
know, kind of poke a couple ofdots across the map and uh and
uh hopefully folks have apicture in their mind, but I'll
let you guys guide me to fill inwhat you think would make sense
for for our audience here.
SPEAKER_01 (06:20):
Um well, the the 108-qubit system that you
mentioned, right?
If I'm correct, that wasrecently announced or or or
launched.
Correct.
Um I I think that's that's avery interesting kind of
milestone, right?
So uh you mentioned also aboutthe the roadmap to a thousand
(06:40):
qubit.
I would assume this recentannouncement is kind of part of
that planned roadmap.
SPEAKER_02 (06:46):
Correct.
Yeah, we uh we are generally wegenerally err on the side of
conservatism in publishingroadmaps and in how we talk
about future uh milestones.
Um and not to be sort of cageyor secretive, but more so
because we really try tomaintain and and reinforce a
(07:10):
persona in the industry of, hey,we're we're straight shooters,
right?
We tell it as best we can likewe see it, and particularly when
talking about future items, wetry to put out there aggressive
but attainable goals that wedeliver against and and and
maintain a reputation of ofdelivering.
There's it's uh there's a lot ofhype out there as uh uh given
(07:34):
how long you guys have beendoing the podcast here and um
the range of folks I'm sureyou've spoken with, and the
range of folks who are in youraudience, I'm sure have
witnessed just some of the crazymoments of uh you know, honest,
awesome, authentic achievements,and then other moments of
(07:56):
exaggeration or real kind ofhead scratching, you know,
questioning moments of wow, didthey really do that?
Does it is it really thatimportant?
So anyway, um so just to youknow put a little bit of that
color on my answer to yourquestion there, yeah.
So we with this latest uh 108announcement, which was just a
(08:18):
couple of weeks ago, so righthere at the end of uh the first
quarter, um we, you know, wewere, we were, we were really
pushing to get to 99.5, youknow, right out of the gate.
Um, you know, you can'tperfectly predict how science
unfolds and how engineering, youknow, catches up to the science.
And uh and so you know, we'regonna take a little bit longer
(08:40):
to get to that 99.5, but thatwill be a significant milestone.
And then meanwhile, there arenumerous uh engineering
challenges and uh you know areasof excitement, let's say, to uh
to to work through to uh toscale to scale our systems up to
that thousand plus qubit uhrange.
(09:03):
So we're we're gonna there'sthere are a lot of aggressive
numbers out there.
Um and uh for the moment werelax that that that thousand
qubit threshold a little bit tojust be just be more realistic
given what we've learned um anduh you know uh what what we now
understand and expect that it'sgonna take to get there.
SPEAKER_01 (09:25):
And and one of the things that we often discuss uh
on the show when we talk aboutmodalities, right, and and the
challenges related to thosemodalities is the non-trivial
difference in building one qubitgates versus two qubit gates and
some of the big challenges of ofgetting two qubit gates right,
(09:46):
uh specifically from the pointof view of topologies and and
other things.
And I I know uh March this year,you folks also made a very
interesting announcement from mypoint of view about the fidelity
of two qubit gates.
Um and and that was for me, tobe very honest, was even uh a
(10:06):
bigger announcement than therecent 108-qubit system because
I know the kind of Achilles heelin in most cases is getting
right and getting efficientlythe problem solving the problem
of the two-qubit gates.
Um how how is that kind of uhgoing and and what are the what
are the the prospects there?
SPEAKER_02 (10:29):
Yeah, it uh it's it's a great question and
definitely goes to the heart ofan important uh aspect of this
development uh that just willtake a lot of brilliant work to
uh to to to progress against.
Um so we had hit 99.5% two-qubitgate fidelity with our modular
(10:55):
chiplet approach last summerwith our uh 36 qubit um uh uh
first sort of release of the newCepheus architecture.
And uh this 108 being the secondrelease uh of Cepheid.
Uh you know, we we were prettysure that it would be
(11:16):
straightforward to just carrythat 99.5 forward.
But as it turns out, you know,you put uh you know, you get to
a regime with that many qubits,and there are there are
interactions.
There, there's there's there'sphysics with uh important
subtleties that come into playas you add qubits, and um, you
(11:41):
know, basically doing what needsto be done to to keep increasing
that fidelity is uh you knowjust gonna take a little more
work.
And so that's that's what'sgoing on there.
We do feel like we have a Ishouldn't say a straight line,
but we have a line of sight toto to how to you know, again,
keep progressing and improvingum the fidelities.
(12:04):
Um there there's no singlething.
Um it's funny, in so manycontexts I get asked, oh, what's
the the single thing preventingyou know Reghetti or the
industry from reaching X numberof qubits or if only there was
just a single thing.
Yeah, exactly.
Uh you know, I we have a wholeyou know uh uh lab full of you
(12:30):
know uh physicists andelectrical engineers and
mechanical engineers, you know,working on the thermal stuff and
the and mathematicians doing thetheoretical modeling, you know,
and in in rooms in Berkeley andand and Fremont banging away at
different aspects, right?
It's everything from the thequbit design itself to uh the uh
(12:52):
to the the the the the packagingand and cabling and the filters,
the control electronics, um tothe fabrication process itself,
right?
There are there are multiplesteps in um you know you know uh
deposition of metals on thesilicon base and the etching and
(13:13):
the various uh steps within thatprocess.
And um tiny tweaks to any one ofthose processes and
postprocesses has an effect onuh you know uh you know
resistance and precision withwhich one can target the uh the
(13:34):
outcome uh uh center frequenciesof the qubits and um uh uh
imperfections that causetwo-level systems and many,
many, many different things likethat.
So so it's it really itliterally takes a village, and
it takes a village, you know,sort of ongoing in in cohesion
(13:54):
to pull all of those piecestogether and progress uh you
know many things in tandem sothat the the the outcome, the
result is more qubits, a higherfidelity, uh faster gate speed,
uh longer coherence time, all ofwhich themselves are fundamental
inputs to those higher levelthings like how many gates can
(14:16):
you run?
You know, what what does theKlops number look like?
You know, what what's your bestQAOA uh result, et cetera, et
cetera.
SPEAKER_03 (14:24):
Yeah.
You wouldn't you wouldn't askIntel or NVIDIA, well, when are
you done?
When's the final chip going tobe out?
You know?
It's the same thing.
And and and we've talked oftenabout the benefits that the
superconducting modality has ofchip making over the last 60, 70
years.
Um, and so you're you're ridinga little bit on that experience,
(14:47):
but you also know that it justit's a conveyor belt, it's never
gonna stop.
SPEAKER_02 (14:51):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So just to um double-click onthat point, because it's it's we
believe an important one.
Um, yeah.
So one of the interestingaspects of uh of superconducting
relative to some of the othermodalities is that we really do
get to stand on the shoulders ofgiants.
We get to leverage decades ofdevelopment of the tools, the
(15:15):
processes, and frankly, the theactual uh workforce development.
There's the talent of people whoknow how to make all of these
highly specialized uh pieces ofequipment just just just dance.
And um, so RFAB, uh just an hoursouth of where I'm sitting right
now in in Fremont, um, benefitsfrom all of that.
(15:37):
We're using we're using um toolsthat are you know well developed
and mature from thesemiconductor industry, and many
of the folks in there made theirleaps into the quantum world,
you know, having come fromsemiconductors.
And I was just at a conferenceyesterday down in Sunnyvale, uh
a semiconductor, uh originally asemiconductor conference that
(15:58):
has now essentially forked a uha quantum kind of uh you know
subconference, if you will, andum joining a number of uh
colleagues from quantumcomputing and and there wasn't
there was a preponderance ofsuperconducting folks, uh
interestingly, um but buttalking about quantum to uh you
know uh semiconductor uh uhindustry folks, and yeah, there
(16:23):
was a lot of common ground to uhto use as a basis to explain
what we're doing.
Now, all to be clear, um we asuh as a quantum chip maker, um,
we are using those tools andthose processes, but in very
different ways, and in manycases with very different um
materials, um exotic soundingthings like niobium and tantalum
(16:45):
and indium, um, all of which aremetals that have superconducting
properties as well as otherproperties relevant to the way
that they're used in thatparticular aspect of a of a
quantum chip.
Um and one of the one of the uhthings that is or aspects of all
of this that is convenient forthe moment while we're in this
(17:06):
RD stage is that the scale atwhich we're building these uh
these devices is is is so muchuh more macroscopic than the
scale at which today's you knowtop of the line semiconducting
chips, you know, your NVIDIAchips or your Intel chips or
whatever.
We're we're we're dealing withscales you know much much, much,
(17:28):
much greater than that.
And that you know, that gives usthat that just makes it a little
bit easier to play withgeometry, play with
architecture, and and you knowuh save for a little bit later
some of those uh aspects thatwill inevitably um you know come
out as new challenges when wetry to um uh you know
(17:50):
miniaturize these these thingseven further.
SPEAKER_03 (17:52):
Aaron Powell This is the first time I'd even thought
about that.
So what we normally think thinktalk about like three nanometer
uh chips when we're talkingabout processors nowadays.
Uh is there a nanometer scalethat is appropriate to talk
about with you guys, or is it isit not really a good thing?
SPEAKER_02 (18:10):
Yeah, well, so the there is there is one critical
part within the and I'll justconfess that I so I have an
electrical engineering and acomputer science background.
I'm I'm not a materials or a fabexpert here, so I I can I can
share my um semi-technicallyilliterate understanding of
what's going on there.
The the a key element of a qubitthat um that requires you know
(18:34):
nanometer level precision on theorder of a few nanometers is um
is the Josephson junction.
So you can I heard yesterday ananalogy that said you can
roughly think of the Josephsonjunction as the you know the
transistor of uh of a quantumchip.
It's not a perfect analogy, butit's a it's a useful analogy for
some folks.
Good enough.
(18:55):
Yeah.
And uh um but then if you if youand I I have uh a picture that I
often show on a slide, uh if youactually show the uh a picture
of the chip, the overall qubitwith all its pieces, right?
The Josephson junction, the umthe drive lines, the the the
(19:15):
readout resonators, et cetera,um, you know, they're on the
order, they're visible, right?
They're they're on the order ofa millimeter.
So, I mean the the you know, byby chip standards, the the
standard.
Enormous.
So so that that hopefully givesa little bit of a calibration of
the range there.
You gotta you gotta get the thethe inner you know gaps that are
(19:37):
part of the fundamental Joseph'sand junction architecture, you
gotta get them, you know, thatthat that that requires
precision, but um, but the restof the the geometry is is again
macro scale by by by uhsemiconductor chip fabrication
standards.
SPEAKER_01 (19:54):
And just for the for our audience, right, to to to
remind uh everyone, right?
The the chosen junction is thatconstruct that you basically
add, right, to a standardharmonic oscillator uh to
essentially get it out of the uhof the state where uh it's
linear, right?
(20:15):
And and it enables you tobasically get it into a a way to
behave that is useful.
SPEAKER_02 (20:20):
Yeah.
So I that that that is uh here'sthe I'll attempt a quick
explanation of what's going onthere.
So you everything that you saidis accurate.
So what um you know you if ifyou start from you know a basic
understanding of a of a of aharmonic oscillator, um, and for
those with an electricalengineering sort of background,
(20:41):
you think of an LC circuit, aninductor and a capacitor.
Um and when that that circuitoscillates, the energy
essentially in a in a sine wavesort of motion um just
transitions back and forthbetween electrical engineering
energy and magnetic energy.
Um and what we're trying to dowith the circuit that operates
(21:05):
as the superconducting qubit iswe're trying to have uh we're
trying to get to the lowestenergy level, the zero, the
ground state energy level, andone level above that, which
would be the one state.
We're talking about you knowquantized energy states, hence
quantum.
Um there are you can keep ongoing, zero, one, two, three,
(21:28):
four, five.
If you have a linear harmonicoscillator, the energy gaps
between zero and one, one andtwo, two and three is the same.
So if I inject um uh a certainamount of, you know, uh uh an
amount of energy into thatcircuit, it's much harder.
I don't know of am I bouncingfrom zero to one, one to two,
(21:49):
two to three.
If I have a nonlinearity inthere, then what happens is that
the the amount of energy to gofrom zero to one is different
from the amount of energy to gofrom one to two.
And two to three and so on.
And uh that nonlinearity allowsus to isolate that harmonic
oscillator system in such a waythat we can very rigorously keep
(22:13):
it in either zero or one and andknow that that's the case and
have that to be, you know, youknow, understood and
deterministic and so on.
So that's in a few moresentences, what the the uh part
of the point of the Joseph'sinjunction and this notion of
nonlinearity and and and whydoes that matter?
Um one other thing I'll throwout there, because I I didn't,
(22:34):
it took me a little while forthis to come together and as a
fundamental understanding aboutsuperconducting qubits as I as I
you know came into this spaceand into this domain.
Um pretty much all of the otherqubit modalities are about
isolating an actual atom or youknow, an atomic entity, right?
(22:54):
An ion, a photon, a uh uh youknow a an atom of of some uh of
some some material, someelement, um, and manipulating
and reading the quantum state ofthat atomic entity, right?
So this is you know it may rightfrom the the the get-go, right?
(23:15):
Quantum mechanics happens at thequantum level.
What's absolutely fascinatingabout superconducting quantum
qubits is we're not talkingabout individual atoms.
We're talking about amacroscopic construct, physical
construct, that behavesquantumly.
And that that's a that's afascinating phenomenon.
(23:36):
Um and I it it and fundamentallythat's one of the things that
happens when a circuitsuperconducts.
Um so all of us with some youknow basic, you know, scientific
starting probably first learnabout superconducting as oh,
current flows with noresistance.
Um that's important and andinteresting and helpful um when
(23:57):
you're trying to uh you knowconstruct a system that uh where
you isolate quantum behaviors.
But what superconducting alsoentails is that all of the
electrons, or as it turns out,they form pairs called Cooper
pairs.
So all the electrons that areflowing in a superconducting
circuit behave in quantumunison.
(24:19):
They behave as if they were asingle particle.
And so the the quantum behaviorof that collective set of
electrons acting as a singleparticle is what we isolate and
uh ultimately manipulate and useas a as a as a quantum behaving
entity that becomes our qubitthat is the basis of quantum
(24:42):
computation.
And that's a lot easier.
SPEAKER_01 (24:46):
Yeah, I but I think that's a great kind of nuance
because um a lot of people whowe talk to they automatically
assume that quantum computingcan only be built with
individual particles, right?
Well, turns out that's very farfrom the truth, and remarkable
results are obtained with likeum simulating, right, creating
(25:09):
virtual uh particles that areactually implemented using uh a
macroscopic circuit, which whichworks just fine.
SPEAKER_02 (25:17):
Yeah, and this is what essentially what um John
Martinez, John Clark, andMichelle Devere, that's what
they got the Nobel Prize forlast year, was essentially for
figuring this out and doing theearly experiments that that
demonstrated it.
So it's uh you know, we're alldefinitely uh beneficiaries of
that brilliant thinking and andexperimental work there.
(25:39):
So yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (25:40):
And this would make you much less I mean, you're
still susceptible to heat andand and other noise, but it
makes you less susceptibleprobably than a single photon
would.
SPEAKER_02 (25:51):
Yeah.
Yes.
I mean, that is, we believe,what has made superconducting as
a modality um successful to dateand and you know, again,
building the chips andleveraging the the um you know
all that uh uh those decades ofmaturity in in tools and
(26:15):
processes and knowledge fromsemiconductors.
Um but then also the just themere fact that we're dealing
with a macroscopic entity,right?
And not trying to isolate andmanipulate individual atoms,
which you know are so many organuh orders of magnitude smaller
than than the superconductingcircuits we're dealing with, you
know, that that affords, youknow, it gives like I maybe one
(26:35):
way to put it is it it gives usa lot of degrees of freedom to
manipulate, whether it's thearchitecture of the circuit,
whether it's the differentmetals or you know, fabrication
techniques around the circuitand um uh and so on.
However, right, that that allthat said, there's there's a
there are a lot of physical, youknow, aspects here that are that
(26:58):
are challenges.
Noise, you know, heat, you know,whether that's heat, you know,
thermal noise, you know, and youknow, again, we we operate at
these 10 to 20 milkelvintemperatures, so our chips are
operating in these you knowmassive uh dilution
refrigerators um and uh thermalaspects, you know, you the you
(27:18):
hear the word thermalization onthe on the floor at the you know
in the lab, you know, you know,many, many times a day.
So and as we scale, right, youknow, right now we're at 108
qubits in a you know relativelylarge uh uh dilution
refrigerator, you know, as weget into thousands of qubits,
the the the sheer mass of cablesthat uh it's gonna take to get
(27:41):
signals to and from the qubits,um, you know, that's that's one
whole area of the challenge.
And you know, we're looking, youknow, we and the rest of the
industry are looking atdifferent different cabling
technologies, transduction fromum uh the the microwave signals
that we use to to control thechips to to optical and back so
(28:01):
that uh optical cables goingthrough uh uh into the fridge
are you know causing less of athermal load there.
There's um there's you knowdifferent multiplexing
strategies to uh to addressthat.
So but yeah, I mean the uhsignaling and and uh noise both
(28:23):
on the drive signals on the waydown and the readout signals on
the way up and at the chipitself while operations gates
are being executed, all of theseare are fundamental aspects that
multiple people that that uh inour lab are are banging away at
every day.
SPEAKER_01 (28:43):
Um just to switch gears a little bit, because I
want to make sure that we get toto talk a little bit about this
as well.
I think if I'm correct, lastmonth you announced a plan for a
pretty massive investment uh inthe UK.
Is that correct?
SPEAKER_02 (29:00):
And and can you tell us a little bit about like
what's going on and and what aresome of your plans with respect
to these types of Yeah, we uhReggetti has been in the UK for
a number of years, three, four,five years.
I I I it was certainly predatedmy arrival at Reggett as that
relationship uh formed and wasbuilt up and so on.
(29:21):
But you know, where we are todayis we have a 36-qubit system at
the UK National QuantumComputing Center.
And um analogous to a number ofthe US programs such as DARPA's
Quantum Benchworking Initiativeand um uh and it's different
(29:41):
programs in the DOE at thenational laboratories here in
the US, the the UK uh NationalQuantum Computing Center, funded
by the the UK government, alsouh has had in the past and
continues to bring out new umprograms, new new grant dollars
for different different kinds ofresearch.
(30:03):
And uh with the the success ofthe this the system, just the
system that we've deployed thereand the work that's been done on
that system over there, and thethe new grant money coming out
of the UK government, uh we haveit makes sense from both a
business standpoint and adevelopment of the science and
(30:25):
engineering standpoint to youknow essentially double down on
that investment and and and keepum uh well yeah, I'll just leave
it at double down.
So hire more folks, get it um dosome more development over
there, get you know, uh expandsystem capabilities so there's
that much more in the way ofphysical hardware for
(30:46):
researchers to uh to runexperiments against.
So that's that's the context andthe motivation and and and so on
behind that.
We're we're proud of successthere and and and very much uh
uh you know having and andcontinuing a great relationship
with um both senior levelstakeholders who obviously are
(31:08):
wanting to develop the quantumindustry and and uh uh and
stature.
Uh all of many countries, allcountries who are invest whose
governments are investing inquantum are doing it for
national security, for uh foreconomic reasons to try and um
capture as much of what'sultimately going to be an
(31:30):
important and and burgeoninglarge market, you know, capture
that.
Um and then, you know, among theuh scientists and so on, there's
there's certainly the prestigeof of having certain kinds of
development, certain kinds ofbreakthrough happened, you know,
within your labs.
So um, and we're trying to benot just a California or U.S.
company, but you know, have thatinternational footprint and
(31:51):
citizen of the world mentalityand and and go and and work in
some of those other places wherewe can.
We also have uh we we announcedin January a uh a large deal
with India, the Indian um uh uhorganization called CDAC, Center
for Development of AdvancedComputing, essentially their uh
national uh lab uh uh uh entityfocused on computing, a lot of
(32:16):
high-performance computing.
They have a supercomputer there.
And uh you know, we're buildingup an 108 qubit system there,
and we'll be, you know, again,uh uh proud to be a significant
player in helping India developits its nascent uh you know
quantum computing ecosystem.
SPEAKER_03 (32:34):
That's amazing.
We were um in our first year, wehad the government of uh Finland
come to us and want to talk tous because they just acquired a
five-qubit system.
And so we've come so far in sucha short period of time.
So so we're over 30 minutes,which means we we still have a
little bit of time, but weprobably should start wrapping
it up.
Otherwise, we'd be we'd betaking your the the rest of your
(32:57):
day because it's been funtalking to you.
Is there anything else that wehaven't brought up that we
haven't talked about that youthink that we should uh should
surface before we finish up?
SPEAKER_02 (33:07):
I guess you know, I uh in in a in a couple of
minutes, it'll be hard to dojustice to the application side
of things.
But I I'll I'll sort of lob outthere as a teaser, maybe even
for a future conversation, thatwhile Reggetti is a quantum
hardware, quantum system vendor,we're not intending to sell
application-level software perse.
(33:30):
We do have a number ofapplication experts on our staff
who generally are uh carryingout their jobs in collaboration
with academia and industry,working uh from the other side.
Um, you know, we have lots ofgreat stuff going on at the chip
level, but you know, at the endof the day, all of this stuff is
only interesting if there'spractical use for it out there
(33:51):
in the industry.
So we have been uh trying tohelp stimulate and contribute to
and collaborate with other folkswho are pushing ahead in those
areas and some of the particularways in which we're seeing
promising examples, particularlyin machine learning and in
optimization.
(34:12):
Um, chemistry simulation,certainly as well.
We have less expertise andexperience in that area, but
that that's a third uh importantarea of application.
So um just again, lobbying itout there that we are doing some
interesting work there.
And then I guess that you knowthe kind of um message I like to
end with in any conversation uhwith practically any audience
(34:34):
about quantum computing is thatwhile you may hear statements
like, oh, it's 10 years away, oryou know, it's it's it's far
away, it's not yet commerciallyuseful or viable.
There is very interesting workand development and
breakthroughs happening today.
Um if you're a commercialentity, it is worth
investigating this now, gettingpeople ramped up on it.
(34:57):
You're not necessarily gonna gobuy a quantum computer next
quarter and and and convinceyour CFO that that you know uh
you're gonna break even on thatinvestment in nine months or
something like that.
But it will take some time toramp up the expertise uh as to
how to make use of quantumcomputing when it really is
commercially viable.
(35:18):
And it makes sense to startlearning that and ramping up on
that now.
And then for folks out there inin academia or at the more
researchy end of the spectrum,um, if you're in some adjacent
uh area and if you're justwondering, uh, is there stuff to
do here?
Is it is it interesting?
I can just put out an emphaticyes, absolutely.
(35:40):
You know, come join us.
We need we need we need talenthelping um you know ideate and
and visualize and and create andand and make things happen here.
And it is so exciting to be inthis industry.
So that's that that that wouldbe that would be my uh ideal uh
ending phrase.
SPEAKER_03 (35:58):
I I think we couldn't agree more.
We think that uh maybe 10 yearsago quantum was 10 years out,
but we're we're starting to seethings really pop off now.
Um I think the the the way Iexplain it to people is I say,
if you could have known about AIfive years ago and dove into it,
would you?
I think I think we're withinthat five-year bubble right now
that that it's starting toreally pick up.
(36:20):
Totally agreed.
Well, thanks again for joiningus.
We we hope to keep uh Raghettion the menu from now on.
So we appreciate you uh joiningus and uh hopefully we'll see
you soon.
And thanks everybody.
SPEAKER_02 (36:31):
Thank you.
Thanks for having me.
Super fun chatting with you guysand happy to happy to come back.
So uh glad glad to make the uhmake the connection here.
We're gonna hold you to that.
SPEAKER_01 (36:39):
It's been a pleasure.
SPEAKER_03 (36:40):
Thanks, everybody.
We'll see you soon.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
SPEAKER_00 (36:46):
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together.
Episode 141.
I suppose it is every day youdid.
Physics behind the job.
What it's going to take to reachthe thousand cubic milestone.
(00:30):
Welcome to Entangle Things, yourquantum computing podcast,
hosted by Patrick and Cipri.
SPEAKER_03 (00:40):
Hey Ciprien, how are you doing?
SPEAKER_01 (00:43):
Hey Patrick.
I'm doing great.
Looking forward for anotherepisode of Entangled Things.
SPEAKER_03 (00:47):
Oh, not nothing not to be disappointed today.
So, Mike, do you mindintroducing yourself to our
audience?
SPEAKER_02 (00:53):
Sure.
Hi, everyone.
My name is Mike Peach.
I'm vice president of businessdevelopment at Reggetti
Computing.
We make quantum computers, isthe simplest uh sort of intro
statement there.
So I will uh I'll pause at thatmoment and uh you can guide me
as to how you'd like me tofurther take the introduction
here.
I can go a little bit into mybackground, I can give a little
(01:15):
intro to Reggetti itself, wecan, and then we can we can go
in a whole bunch of directions.
SPEAKER_03 (01:20):
I I think we start with the Raghetti, because uh
unbelievably, even after fiveyears, you were the first guest
from your company, and we havebeen remiss in in pigeonholing
you guys and getting you to uhto show up for the podcast.
So that's on us.
But finally we have you guyshere.
So can you talk about like howyou guys are approaching the
(01:40):
quest to build quantumcomputers, modality, you know,
challenges that you see?
Just what what are you guys upto?
Because uh you've been missingfrom our palette up till now.
SPEAKER_02 (01:51):
Got it.
Sure thing, and no worries.
So, you know, we're all of us inthe in this business uh
appreciate that it's very muchemerging and and nascent and uh
all of those those kinds ofadjectives of um of earliness.
Uh so anyway, so yes, ReggettComputing founded in 2013 by
(02:13):
Chad Raghetti and a small teamthere.
We we came out of Y Combinator,uh so in some ways a classic uh
Silicon Valley type of uh uhgestation there.
Um and while today we're stillrelatively small, we're 160
people, uh we're relatively oldby startup standards, so we've
(02:38):
uh had a kind of measured path,as it were.
There was uh there were a coupleof little uh changes and and
zigs and zags along the way, asas with as with any company.
Um interestingly, so first off,you said modality, so we are
superconducting, and uh so youknow Chad Raghetti, our founder,
(03:02):
uh studied at Yale with MichelleDevere, one of the uh one of the
three recipients of the NobelPhysics Prize last year, so uh
along with uh John Martinez andJohn Clark.
So uh very much part of that uhthat that early cohort that
really kind of established uhsuperconducting and and and gave
(03:26):
it a lot of that early momentum,which continues to this day via
IBM and Google and Amazon andthe Chinese government and and
and and a few companies inEurope as well.
So the sort of the investmentand energy going into
superconducting uh among themodalities is is certainly
(03:48):
important, I'll say, for anybodywho's kind of getting into the
area or uh sort of tracking it.
Uh so just a couple of quickstats to uh catch us up to 2026.
So I mentioned we're 160 people.
We are public, we went public asa SPAC in 2022 uh along with a
(04:09):
few other companies.
So um interestingly, in a mousethat roared sort of uh
configuration there, we're worthuh as of yesterday, at least
around six billion dollars inmarket capitalization.
Um and you know, along that13-year journey, we've had a
number of you know, industryfirsts and a number of moments
(04:30):
of industry leadership.
So we built the industry's firstquantum dedicated fab, which is
uh in Fremont, California.
Our headquarters is in Berkeley,California.
So California company, you know,Silicon Valley-ish kinds of
routes.
Uh we were among the first toput quantum compute cycles in
the cloud.
We're uh an inaugural uh uhprovider in Amazon's bracket
(04:56):
offering.
We're also available onMicrosoft Azure Quantum today,
as well as provide a directconnection in a in that uh that
cloud model.
But uh we also focus on uhdelivering on-premises quantum
compute systems.
So uh within that context ofyes, the industry is early.
(05:18):
Um for the most part, commercialcompanies are not acquiring
on-premises quantum systemstoday.
The folks who are actuallybuying these systems are
typically national laboratoriesand universities.
Um, but uh we're our ourflagship system today is 108
(05:39):
qubits, uh operating at uh about99.1, 99.2% two qubit gate
fidelity, looking to bring thatup to about 99.5 by the end of
this year, and we're we'retargeting breaching the thousand
qubit mark, thousand physicalqubits to be clear, uh uh in
(06:00):
within just a couple of yearsaround 2029.
So let me pause there, as I knowthere was a little bit of a, you
know, kind of poke a couple ofdots across the map and uh and
uh hopefully folks have apicture in their mind, but I'll
let you guys guide me to fill inwhat you think would make sense
for for our audience here.
SPEAKER_01 (06:20):
Um well, the the 108-qubit system that you
mentioned, right?
If I'm correct, that wasrecently announced or or or
launched.
Correct.
Um I I think that's that's avery interesting kind of
milestone, right?
So uh you mentioned also aboutthe the roadmap to a thousand
(06:40):
qubit.
I would assume this recentannouncement is kind of part of
that planned roadmap.
SPEAKER_02 (06:46):
Correct.
Yeah, we uh we are generally wegenerally err on the side of
conservatism in publishingroadmaps and in how we talk
about future uh milestones.
Um and not to be sort of cageyor secretive, but more so
because we really try tomaintain and and reinforce a
(07:10):
persona in the industry of, hey,we're we're straight shooters,
right?
We tell it as best we can likewe see it, and particularly when
talking about future items, wetry to put out there aggressive
but attainable goals that wedeliver against and and and
maintain a reputation of ofdelivering.
There's it's uh there's a lot ofhype out there as uh uh given
(07:34):
how long you guys have beendoing the podcast here and um
the range of folks I'm sureyou've spoken with, and the
range of folks who are in youraudience, I'm sure have
witnessed just some of the crazymoments of uh you know, honest,
awesome, authentic achievements,and then other moments of
(07:56):
exaggeration or real kind ofhead scratching, you know,
questioning moments of wow, didthey really do that?
Does it is it really thatimportant?
So anyway, um so just to youknow put a little bit of that
color on my answer to yourquestion there, yeah.
So we with this latest uh 108announcement, which was just a
(08:18):
couple of weeks ago, so righthere at the end of uh the first
quarter, um we, you know, wewere, we were, we were really
pushing to get to 99.5, youknow, right out of the gate.
Um, you know, you can'tperfectly predict how science
unfolds and how engineering, youknow, catches up to the science.
And uh and so you know, we'regonna take a little bit longer
(08:40):
to get to that 99.5, but thatwill be a significant milestone.
And then meanwhile, there arenumerous uh engineering
challenges and uh you know areasof excitement, let's say, to uh
to to work through to uh toscale to scale our systems up to
that thousand plus qubit uhrange.
(09:03):
So we're we're gonna there'sthere are a lot of aggressive
numbers out there.
Um and uh for the moment werelax that that that thousand
qubit threshold a little bit tojust be just be more realistic
given what we've learned um anduh you know uh what what we now
understand and expect that it'sgonna take to get there.
SPEAKER_01 (09:25):
And and one of the things that we often discuss uh
on the show when we talk aboutmodalities, right, and and the
challenges related to thosemodalities is the non-trivial
difference in building one qubitgates versus two qubit gates and
some of the big challenges of ofgetting two qubit gates right,
(09:46):
uh specifically from the pointof view of topologies and and
other things.
And I I know uh March this year,you folks also made a very
interesting announcement from mypoint of view about the fidelity
of two qubit gates.
Um and and that was for me, tobe very honest, was even uh a
(10:06):
bigger announcement than therecent 108-qubit system because
I know the kind of Achilles heelin in most cases is getting
right and getting efficientlythe problem solving the problem
of the two-qubit gates.
Um how how is that kind of uhgoing and and what are the what
are the the prospects there?
SPEAKER_02 (10:29):
Yeah, it uh it's it's a great question and
definitely goes to the heart ofan important uh aspect of this
development uh that just willtake a lot of brilliant work to
uh to to to progress against.
Um so we had hit 99.5% two-qubitgate fidelity with our modular
(10:55):
chiplet approach last summerwith our uh 36 qubit um uh uh
first sort of release of the newCepheus architecture.
And uh this 108 being the secondrelease uh of Cepheid.
Uh you know, we we were prettysure that it would be
(11:16):
straightforward to just carrythat 99.5 forward.
But as it turns out, you know,you put uh you know, you get to
a regime with that many qubits,and there are there are
interactions.
There, there's there's there'sphysics with uh important
subtleties that come into playas you add qubits, and um, you
(11:41):
know, basically doing what needsto be done to to keep increasing
that fidelity is uh you knowjust gonna take a little more
work.
And so that's that's what'sgoing on there.
We do feel like we have a Ishouldn't say a straight line,
but we have a line of sight toto to how to you know, again,
keep progressing and improvingum the fidelities.
(12:04):
Um there there's no singlething.
Um it's funny, in so manycontexts I get asked, oh, what's
the the single thing preventingyou know Reghetti or the
industry from reaching X numberof qubits or if only there was
just a single thing.
Yeah, exactly.
Uh you know, I we have a wholeyou know uh uh lab full of you
(12:30):
know uh physicists andelectrical engineers and
mechanical engineers, you know,working on the thermal stuff and
the and mathematicians doing thetheoretical modeling, you know,
and in in rooms in Berkeley andand and Fremont banging away at
different aspects, right?
It's everything from the thequbit design itself to uh the uh
(12:52):
to the the the the the packagingand and cabling and the filters,
the control electronics, um tothe fabrication process itself,
right?
There are there are multiplesteps in um you know you know uh
deposition of metals on thesilicon base and the etching and
(13:13):
the various uh steps within thatprocess.
And um tiny tweaks to any one ofthose processes and
postprocesses has an effect onuh you know uh you know
resistance and precision withwhich one can target the uh the
(13:34):
outcome uh uh center frequenciesof the qubits and um uh uh
imperfections that causetwo-level systems and many,
many, many different things likethat.
So so it's it really itliterally takes a village, and
it takes a village, you know,sort of ongoing in in cohesion
(13:54):
to pull all of those piecestogether and progress uh you
know many things in tandem sothat the the the outcome, the
result is more qubits, a higherfidelity, uh faster gate speed,
uh longer coherence time, all ofwhich themselves are fundamental
inputs to those higher levelthings like how many gates can
(14:16):
you run?
You know, what what does theKlops number look like?
You know, what what's your bestQAOA uh result, et cetera, et
cetera.
SPEAKER_03 (14:24):
Yeah.
You wouldn't you wouldn't askIntel or NVIDIA, well, when are
you done?
When's the final chip going tobe out?
You know?
It's the same thing.
And and and we've talked oftenabout the benefits that the
superconducting modality has ofchip making over the last 60, 70
years.
Um, and so you're you're ridinga little bit on that experience,
(14:47):
but you also know that it justit's a conveyor belt, it's never
gonna stop.
SPEAKER_02 (14:51):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So just to um double-click onthat point, because it's it's we
believe an important one.
Um, yeah.
So one of the interestingaspects of uh of superconducting
relative to some of the othermodalities is that we really do
get to stand on the shoulders ofgiants.
We get to leverage decades ofdevelopment of the tools, the
(15:15):
processes, and frankly, the theactual uh workforce development.
There's the talent of people whoknow how to make all of these
highly specialized uh pieces ofequipment just just just dance.
And um, so RFAB, uh just an hoursouth of where I'm sitting right
now in in Fremont, um, benefitsfrom all of that.
(15:37):
We're using we're using um toolsthat are you know well developed
and mature from thesemiconductor industry, and many
of the folks in there made theirleaps into the quantum world,
you know, having come fromsemiconductors.
And I was just at a conferenceyesterday down in Sunnyvale, uh
a semiconductor, uh originally asemiconductor conference that
(15:58):
has now essentially forked a uha quantum kind of uh you know
subconference, if you will, andum joining a number of uh
colleagues from quantumcomputing and and there wasn't
there was a preponderance ofsuperconducting folks, uh
interestingly, um but buttalking about quantum to uh you
know uh semiconductor uh uhindustry folks, and yeah, there
(16:23):
was a lot of common ground to uhto use as a basis to explain
what we're doing.
Now, all to be clear, um we asuh as a quantum chip maker, um,
we are using those tools andthose processes, but in very
different ways, and in manycases with very different um
materials, um exotic soundingthings like niobium and tantalum
(16:45):
and indium, um, all of which aremetals that have superconducting
properties as well as otherproperties relevant to the way
that they're used in thatparticular aspect of a of a
quantum chip.
Um and one of the one of the uhthings that is or aspects of all
of this that is convenient forthe moment while we're in this
(17:06):
RD stage is that the scale atwhich we're building these uh
these devices is is is so muchuh more macroscopic than the
scale at which today's you knowtop of the line semiconducting
chips, you know, your NVIDIAchips or your Intel chips or
whatever.
We're we're we're dealing withscales you know much much, much,
(17:28):
much greater than that.
And that you know, that gives usthat that just makes it a little
bit easier to play withgeometry, play with
architecture, and and you knowuh save for a little bit later
some of those uh aspects thatwill inevitably um you know come
out as new challenges when wetry to um uh you know
(17:50):
miniaturize these these thingseven further.
SPEAKER_03 (17:52):
Aaron Powell This is the first time I'd even thought
about that.
So what we normally think thinktalk about like three nanometer
uh chips when we're talkingabout processors nowadays.
Uh is there a nanometer scalethat is appropriate to talk
about with you guys, or is it isit not really a good thing?
SPEAKER_02 (18:10):
Yeah, well, so the there is there is one critical
part within the and I'll justconfess that I so I have an
electrical engineering and acomputer science background.
I'm I'm not a materials or a fabexpert here, so I I can I can
share my um semi-technicallyilliterate understanding of
what's going on there.
The the a key element of a qubitthat um that requires you know
(18:34):
nanometer level precision on theorder of a few nanometers is um
is the Josephson junction.
So you can I heard yesterday ananalogy that said you can
roughly think of the Josephsonjunction as the you know the
transistor of uh of a quantumchip.
It's not a perfect analogy, butit's a it's a useful analogy for
some folks.
Good enough.
(18:55):
Yeah.
And uh um but then if you if youand I I have uh a picture that I
often show on a slide, uh if youactually show the uh a picture
of the chip, the overall qubitwith all its pieces, right?
The Josephson junction, the umthe drive lines, the the the
(19:15):
readout resonators, et cetera,um, you know, they're on the
order, they're visible, right?
They're they're on the order ofa millimeter.
So, I mean the the you know, byby chip standards, the the
standard.
Enormous.
So so that that hopefully givesa little bit of a calibration of
the range there.
You gotta you gotta get the thethe inner you know gaps that are
(19:37):
part of the fundamental Joseph'sand junction architecture, you
gotta get them, you know, thatthat that that requires
precision, but um, but the restof the the geometry is is again
macro scale by by by uhsemiconductor chip fabrication
standards.
SPEAKER_01 (19:54):
And just for the for our audience, right, to to to
remind uh everyone, right?
The the chosen junction is thatconstruct that you basically
add, right, to a standardharmonic oscillator uh to
essentially get it out of the uhof the state where uh it's
linear, right?
(20:15):
And and it enables you tobasically get it into a a way to
behave that is useful.
SPEAKER_02 (20:20):
Yeah.
So I that that that is uh here'sthe I'll attempt a quick
explanation of what's going onthere.
So you everything that you saidis accurate.
So what um you know you if ifyou start from you know a basic
understanding of a of a of aharmonic oscillator, um, and for
those with an electricalengineering sort of background,
(20:41):
you think of an LC circuit, aninductor and a capacitor.
Um and when that that circuitoscillates, the energy
essentially in a in a sine wavesort of motion um just
transitions back and forthbetween electrical engineering
energy and magnetic energy.
Um and what we're trying to dowith the circuit that operates
(21:05):
as the superconducting qubit iswe're trying to have uh we're
trying to get to the lowestenergy level, the zero, the
ground state energy level, andone level above that, which
would be the one state.
We're talking about you knowquantized energy states, hence
quantum.
Um there are you can keep ongoing, zero, one, two, three,
(21:28):
four, five.
If you have a linear harmonicoscillator, the energy gaps
between zero and one, one andtwo, two and three is the same.
So if I inject um uh a certainamount of, you know, uh uh an
amount of energy into thatcircuit, it's much harder.
I don't know of am I bouncingfrom zero to one, one to two,
(21:49):
two to three.
If I have a nonlinearity inthere, then what happens is that
the the amount of energy to gofrom zero to one is different
from the amount of energy to gofrom one to two.
And two to three and so on.
And uh that nonlinearity allowsus to isolate that harmonic
oscillator system in such a waythat we can very rigorously keep
(22:13):
it in either zero or one and andknow that that's the case and
have that to be, you know, youknow, understood and
deterministic and so on.
So that's in a few moresentences, what the the uh part
of the point of the Joseph'sinjunction and this notion of
nonlinearity and and and whydoes that matter?
Um one other thing I'll throwout there, because I I didn't,
(22:34):
it took me a little while forthis to come together and as a
fundamental understanding aboutsuperconducting qubits as I as I
you know came into this spaceand into this domain.
Um pretty much all of the otherqubit modalities are about
isolating an actual atom or youknow, an atomic entity, right?
(22:54):
An ion, a photon, a uh uh youknow a an atom of of some uh of
some some material, someelement, um, and manipulating
and reading the quantum state ofthat atomic entity, right?
So this is you know it may rightfrom the the the get-go, right?
(23:15):
Quantum mechanics happens at thequantum level.
What's absolutely fascinatingabout superconducting quantum
qubits is we're not talkingabout individual atoms.
We're talking about amacroscopic construct, physical
construct, that behavesquantumly.
And that that's a that's afascinating phenomenon.
(23:36):
Um and I it it and fundamentallythat's one of the things that
happens when a circuitsuperconducts.
Um so all of us with some youknow basic, you know, scientific
starting probably first learnabout superconducting as oh,
current flows with noresistance.
Um that's important and andinteresting and helpful um when
(23:57):
you're trying to uh you knowconstruct a system that uh where
you isolate quantum behaviors.
But what superconducting alsoentails is that all of the
electrons, or as it turns out,they form pairs called Cooper
pairs.
So all the electrons that areflowing in a superconducting
circuit behave in quantumunison.
(24:19):
They behave as if they were asingle particle.
And so the the quantum behaviorof that collective set of
electrons acting as a singleparticle is what we isolate and
uh ultimately manipulate and useas a as a as a quantum behaving
entity that becomes our qubitthat is the basis of quantum
(24:42):
computation.
And that's a lot easier.
SPEAKER_01 (24:46):
Yeah, I but I think that's a great kind of nuance
because um a lot of people whowe talk to they automatically
assume that quantum computingcan only be built with
individual particles, right?
Well, turns out that's very farfrom the truth, and remarkable
results are obtained with likeum simulating, right, creating
(25:09):
virtual uh particles that areactually implemented using uh a
macroscopic circuit, which whichworks just fine.
SPEAKER_02 (25:17):
Yeah, and this is what essentially what um John
Martinez, John Clark, andMichelle Devere, that's what
they got the Nobel Prize forlast year, was essentially for
figuring this out and doing theearly experiments that that
demonstrated it.
So it's uh you know, we're alldefinitely uh beneficiaries of
that brilliant thinking and andexperimental work there.
(25:39):
So yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (25:40):
And this would make you much less I mean, you're
still susceptible to heat andand and other noise, but it
makes you less susceptibleprobably than a single photon
would.
SPEAKER_02 (25:51):
Yeah.
Yes.
I mean, that is, we believe,what has made superconducting as
a modality um successful to dateand and you know, again,
building the chips andleveraging the the um you know
all that uh uh those decades ofmaturity in in tools and
(26:15):
processes and knowledge fromsemiconductors.
Um but then also the just themere fact that we're dealing
with a macroscopic entity,right?
And not trying to isolate andmanipulate individual atoms,
which you know are so many organuh orders of magnitude smaller
than than the superconductingcircuits we're dealing with, you
know, that that affords, youknow, it gives like I maybe one
(26:35):
way to put it is it it gives usa lot of degrees of freedom to
manipulate, whether it's thearchitecture of the circuit,
whether it's the differentmetals or you know, fabrication
techniques around the circuitand um uh and so on.
However, right, that that allthat said, there's there's a
there are a lot of physical, youknow, aspects here that are that
(26:58):
are challenges.
Noise, you know, heat, you know,whether that's heat, you know,
thermal noise, you know, and youknow, again, we we operate at
these 10 to 20 milkelvintemperatures, so our chips are
operating in these you knowmassive uh dilution
refrigerators um and uh thermalaspects, you know, you the you
(27:18):
hear the word thermalization onthe on the floor at the you know
in the lab, you know, you know,many, many times a day.
So and as we scale, right, youknow, right now we're at 108
qubits in a you know relativelylarge uh uh dilution
refrigerator, you know, as weget into thousands of qubits,
the the the sheer mass of cablesthat uh it's gonna take to get
(27:41):
signals to and from the qubits,um, you know, that's that's one
whole area of the challenge.
And you know, we're looking, youknow, we and the rest of the
industry are looking atdifferent different cabling
technologies, transduction fromum uh the the microwave signals
that we use to to control thechips to to optical and back so
(28:01):
that uh optical cables goingthrough uh uh into the fridge
are you know causing less of athermal load there.
There's um there's you knowdifferent multiplexing
strategies to uh to addressthat.
So but yeah, I mean the uhsignaling and and uh noise both
(28:23):
on the drive signals on the waydown and the readout signals on
the way up and at the chipitself while operations gates
are being executed, all of theseare are fundamental aspects that
multiple people that that uh inour lab are are banging away at
every day.
SPEAKER_01 (28:43):
Um just to switch gears a little bit, because I
want to make sure that we get toto talk a little bit about this
as well.
I think if I'm correct, lastmonth you announced a plan for a
pretty massive investment uh inthe UK.
Is that correct?
SPEAKER_02 (29:00):
And and can you tell us a little bit about like
what's going on and and what aresome of your plans with respect
to these types of Yeah, we uhReggetti has been in the UK for
a number of years, three, four,five years.
I I I it was certainly predatedmy arrival at Reggett as that
relationship uh formed and wasbuilt up and so on.
(29:21):
But you know, where we are todayis we have a 36-qubit system at
the UK National QuantumComputing Center.
And um analogous to a number ofthe US programs such as DARPA's
Quantum Benchworking Initiativeand um uh and it's different
(29:41):
programs in the DOE at thenational laboratories here in
the US, the the UK uh NationalQuantum Computing Center, funded
by the the UK government, alsouh has had in the past and
continues to bring out new umprograms, new new grant dollars
for different different kinds ofresearch.
(30:03):
And uh with the the success ofthe this the system, just the
system that we've deployed thereand the work that's been done on
that system over there, and thethe new grant money coming out
of the UK government, uh we haveit makes sense from both a
business standpoint and adevelopment of the science and
(30:25):
engineering standpoint to youknow essentially double down on
that investment and and and keepum uh well yeah, I'll just leave
it at double down.
So hire more folks, get it um dosome more development over
there, get you know, uh expandsystem capabilities so there's
that much more in the way ofphysical hardware for
(30:46):
researchers to uh to runexperiments against.
So that's that's the context andthe motivation and and and so on
behind that.
We're we're proud of successthere and and and very much uh
uh you know having and andcontinuing a great relationship
with um both senior levelstakeholders who obviously are
(31:08):
wanting to develop the quantumindustry and and uh uh and
stature.
Uh all of many countries, allcountries who are invest whose
governments are investing inquantum are doing it for
national security, for uh foreconomic reasons to try and um
capture as much of what'sultimately going to be an
(31:30):
important and and burgeoninglarge market, you know, capture
that.
Um and then, you know, among theuh scientists and so on, there's
there's certainly the prestigeof of having certain kinds of
development, certain kinds ofbreakthrough happened, you know,
within your labs.
So um, and we're trying to benot just a California or U.S.
company, but you know, have thatinternational footprint and
(31:51):
citizen of the world mentalityand and and go and and work in
some of those other places wherewe can.
We also have uh we we announcedin January a uh a large deal
with India, the Indian um uh uhorganization called CDAC, Center
for Development of AdvancedComputing, essentially their uh
national uh lab uh uh uh entityfocused on computing, a lot of
(32:16):
high-performance computing.
They have a supercomputer there.
And uh you know, we're buildingup an 108 qubit system there,
and we'll be, you know, again,uh uh proud to be a significant
player in helping India developits its nascent uh you know
quantum computing ecosystem.
SPEAKER_03 (32:34):
That's amazing.
We were um in our first year, wehad the government of uh Finland
come to us and want to talk tous because they just acquired a
five-qubit system.
And so we've come so far in sucha short period of time.
So so we're over 30 minutes,which means we we still have a
little bit of time, but weprobably should start wrapping
it up.
Otherwise, we'd be we'd betaking your the the rest of your
(32:57):
day because it's been funtalking to you.
Is there anything else that wehaven't brought up that we
haven't talked about that youthink that we should uh should
surface before we finish up?
SPEAKER_02 (33:07):
I guess you know, I uh in in a in a couple of
minutes, it'll be hard to dojustice to the application side
of things.
But I I'll I'll sort of lob outthere as a teaser, maybe even
for a future conversation, thatwhile Reggetti is a quantum
hardware, quantum system vendor,we're not intending to sell
application-level software perse.
(33:30):
We do have a number ofapplication experts on our staff
who generally are uh carryingout their jobs in collaboration
with academia and industry,working uh from the other side.
Um, you know, we have lots ofgreat stuff going on at the chip
level, but you know, at the endof the day, all of this stuff is
only interesting if there'spractical use for it out there
(33:51):
in the industry.
So we have been uh trying tohelp stimulate and contribute to
and collaborate with other folkswho are pushing ahead in those
areas and some of the particularways in which we're seeing
promising examples, particularlyin machine learning and in
optimization.
(34:12):
Um, chemistry simulation,certainly as well.
We have less expertise andexperience in that area, but
that that's a third uh importantarea of application.
So um just again, lobbying itout there that we are doing some
interesting work there.
And then I guess that you knowthe kind of um message I like to
end with in any conversation uhwith practically any audience
(34:34):
about quantum computing is thatwhile you may hear statements
like, oh, it's 10 years away, oryou know, it's it's it's far
away, it's not yet commerciallyuseful or viable.
There is very interesting workand development and
breakthroughs happening today.
Um if you're a commercialentity, it is worth
investigating this now, gettingpeople ramped up on it.
(34:57):
You're not necessarily gonna gobuy a quantum computer next
quarter and and and convinceyour CFO that that you know uh
you're gonna break even on thatinvestment in nine months or
something like that.
But it will take some time toramp up the expertise uh as to
how to make use of quantumcomputing when it really is
commercially viable.
(35:18):
And it makes sense to startlearning that and ramping up on
that now.
And then for folks out there inin academia or at the more
researchy end of the spectrum,um, if you're in some adjacent
uh area and if you're justwondering, uh, is there stuff to
do here?
Is it is it interesting?
I can just put out an emphaticyes, absolutely.
(35:40):
You know, come join us.
We need we need we need talenthelping um you know ideate and
and visualize and and create andand and make things happen here.
And it is so exciting to be inthis industry.
So that's that that that wouldbe that would be my uh ideal uh
ending phrase.
SPEAKER_03 (35:58):
I I think we couldn't agree more.
We think that uh maybe 10 yearsago quantum was 10 years out,
but we're we're starting to seethings really pop off now.
Um I think the the the way Iexplain it to people is I say,
if you could have known about AIfive years ago and dove into it,
would you?
I think I think we're withinthat five-year bubble right now
that that it's starting toreally pick up.
(36:20):
Totally agreed.
Well, thanks again for joiningus.
We we hope to keep uh Raghettion the menu from now on.
So we appreciate you uh joiningus and uh hopefully we'll see
you soon.
And thanks everybody.
SPEAKER_02 (36:31):
Thank you.
Thanks for having me.
Super fun chatting with you guysand happy to happy to come back.
So uh glad glad to make the uhmake the connection here.
We're gonna hold you to that.
SPEAKER_01 (36:39):
It's been a pleasure.
SPEAKER_03 (36:40):
Thanks, everybody.
We'll see you soon.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
SPEAKER_00 (36:46):
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