The evolution of quantum computers is happening quite quickly and Releasesa startup active in the development of these devices, announced the launch of Aspen-M, an 80-qubit quantum processor characterized by the fact that it is actually made up of two chips of 40 qubits each. It is in fact the first multi-chip quantum processor available on the market.
Rigetti presents the first multi-chip quantum processor, Aspen-M
The new Rigetti Aspen-M makes 80 qubits available but, unlike other quantum processors available today outside of research labs, it is actually built with two chips of 40 qubits each. Rigetti achieved this result by exploiting one of the principles underlying the operation of quantum computers, namely thetangle.
This phenomenon, which can be translated as “being linked” (literally it is “entanglement”, so it implies an almost inextricable link), causes two qubits to link and what happens at the quantum level on the one affects the other. By exploiting the entanglement it is therefore possible connect multiple chipsand theoretically several quantum computers, and make them work together as a whole.
This is exactly what Rigetti did, who took advantage of this feature to “tie” two 40-qubit chips together to get a single one of 80 qubits. The new Aspen-M processors are built using gods superconducting qubitslike IBM’s Eagle, and bring several changes compared to the previous generation: they are more than twice as big, they deliver 2.5 times better performance and reduce the error rate by 50%. In other words, according to Rigetti, they are better in every way than the previous model.
This is a technique that others have already thought of: IonQ had indeed announced that it wanted to entangle two quantum processors to obtain one with more qubits, but in this case it was still in the study phase. Rigetti, on the other hand, promises a functional product that will soon be available on the market.
In addition to the Aspen-M, Rigetti will supply a processor based on the 40-qubit single chip: the chosen name is aspenthat’s why you might guess that the “M” in “Aspen-M” stands for “multi”.
Rigetti cites two benchmarks made to demonstrate the capabilities of the new processor. The first is a stock market prediction on the New York Stock Exchange, the results of which are competitive with those obtained by the best machine learning models on conventional computers. The second is rather an optimization problem on 65 variables, which Aspen-M solves in less than 5 minutes; the same problem, carried out on conventional machines, would take more than 7 years to solve, according to Rigetti.
Aspen-Ms will be available from the first quarter of 2022, while Aspens is already available through Rigetti Quantum Cloud Services, the Strangeworks ecosystem and Amazon Braket. The company has also entered into a OK collaboration with Microsoft, which will make Rigetti’s quantum computers available through Azure.
“With these systems, we have taken a critical step into the coming era of quantum advantage”he stated Chad Rigetticompany founder and CEO. “Our machines are now at the scale and speed needed to process real-world datasets behind high-impact applications. We believe these systems provide researchers and businesses with the best platform to research the quantum advantage over real problems.”