Brian Kinstlinger: Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. My first is could you discuss the NQCC award for the 24-qubit system. How long was the evaluation process? Who is the competition specifically for the QPU piece of the procurement? And what was the feedback on why Rigetti?
Subodh Kulkarni: Thanks, Brian. Good questions. So the NQCC competition was set by the, basically, the UK government. They wanted a foundational quantum computer in their facility on which they build UK’s quantum infrastructure. So that’s a very key piece of equipment that they were procuring. The competition was set for roughly a six-month period. They didn’t divulge all the competitors that they evaluated, but we are pretty sure most of the companies that are at the cutting edge of technology and quantum computing were part of that competition. That’s why we feel really good that they chose us as the technology of choice to build UK’s quantum infrastructure. So clearly, it demonstrates their faith in superconducting quantum computing technology and within conducting quantum computing technology Rigetti as the leading technology of choice.
So very important competition. We feel really good about the fact that an external third-party validated and confirmed our beliefs that we are making the best quantum computers right now.
Brian Kinstlinger: And did you for your QPU only compete with the gating technology? Or was it against, you think, all the different types of technology for you?
Subodh Kulkarni: They didn’t clarify that, but based on the fact that they were looking for general purpose computing, they probably looked more at gate-based computing approaches. As you probably know, when you look at things like annealing, they’re very restricted to the number of applications they can pursue like optimization and a few other applications like that. As soon as you say general purpose computing for the broader market, really, you have to go with a gate-based approach. So the fact that they were looking for general computing tells me that they were primarily looking at gate-based approaches.
Brian Kinstlinger: Great. And then does this award put you in a leadership position so that the NQCC has other procurements or other national labs see that, are you seeing increased interest? I guess I’m just kind of curious if this can lead to additional QPU sales, whether it’s 9-qubit, 24 or even more|
Subodh Kulkarni: Certainly, I mean, the fact that the DOE’s premier quantum computing facility, Fermilab, chose us middle of 2023, that certainly was a factor, I’m sure, in NQCC’s decision of choosing us. And now that both the US government DOE, DOD labs and now in NQCC, the UK lab have chosen us, I’m pretty sure the next few national labs who are looking at similar test beds and quantum computing facilities will look at us much more carefully because of — if the US government and UK government deems that we are making the best quantum computer, chances are we are making the best quantum computers.
Brian Kinstlinger: And are there any other national labs that are running procurements right now? Or is it all incoming early base calls to kind of fill out the industry?
Subodh Kulkarni: There are several countries around the world where they have quantum initiatives going on. If you go around the world, you can certainly see governments have sponsored and sometimes even gotten builds to their respective governments. I mean, Japan in specific, Australia, India, Italy, Germany, Denmark and a few other European countries. There are clearly initiatives going on in various countries to get themselves up to speed in quantum computing. So we are really optimistic about our position with US and UK right now and leveraging that and extending that to these different countries that are getting into quantum computing.
Brian Kinstlinger: Right. Last question I have. What’s the biggest obstacle you have to achieving the 99% fidelity on the 84-qubit system in 2024? And I guess the same question for 2025 on the larger system for 99.5?
Subodh Kulkarni: Certainly, I mean, the basic discipline most of us in the semiconductor industry use to improve error is what we call Pareto analysis. So we’ll — we look at errors just about every day. We’ll do a thorough diagnosis of where the errors are coming from and plot them and then that’s called Pareto analysis and then we look at the biggest contributor of errors and then we go chase them. And then once we resolve them, then the next tier and so on. So first, to get from 95% to 98% last year, we did all things in the — what you call the Josephson Junction itself, which is a proper device in the chip. We also did some changes in the electronics like PCBs that we use as well as the refrigeration systems. This year, to go from 98% to 99%, our focus is primarily on the proper design of the qubit itself, of what we call the Hamiltonian also more look into the refrigeration systems and the losses that we are getting from the refrigeration systems.
So [Technical Difficulty] scientific way of going after errors and addressing them. We feel pretty good about getting to 99% this year using that methodology.
Brian Kinstlinger: Great. Thanks, Subodh.
Subodh Kulkarni: Thank you, Brian.
Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question please. Our next question comes from the line of Krish Sankar with TD Cowen. Your line is now open.
