Microsoft adds Rigetti to Azure Quantum roster

Microsoft and Rigetti have announced a hardware partnership, with the start-up joining a list of Azure Quantum hardware partners that also includes Honeywell and IonQ.

“Rigetti’s gate-based superconducting processors will be available in Azure Quantum soon and utilize QIR [Quantum Intermediate Response] to enable low latency and parallel execution,” a Microsoft blog post stated. In its own press release, Rigetti said the integration between the two companies systems is expected to be completed and ready for users in the first quarter of next year.

“We’re excited to bring the speed and scale of Rigetti quantum computers to the Azure Quantum marketplace,” said Taryn Naidu, chief operating officer of Rigetti. “Microsoft has fostered an impressive community of quantum developers and researchers. Together, we can power a new generation of algorithms that chart the path toward quantum advantage.“

“Rigetti’s scalable approach to superconducting quantum computers will create new opportunities for the Azure Quantum development community,” said Krysta Svore, General Manager of Microsoft Quantum. “We’re working closely with Rigetti to deliver hybrid quantum-classical computing with the performance to tackle problems that were previously out of reach.”

The announcement came a few days after Microsoft and KPMG announced a partnership putting Azure Quantum to work on “real-world problems.”

Microsoft has been busy on the quantum front recent weeks. Last month, the company also announced that Azure Quantum built a quantum-inspired storage solution for its Azure Storage “that keeps the load on storage clusters uniform and dramatically reduces the amount of data the Storage team needs to move,” a blog post stated. “This reduced the number of “hot” clusters whereby user experience could be negatively impacted by a factor of four. The number of monthly support escalations decreased by a factor of ten, and load uniformity across regions improved by 8 percent.”