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Rigetti Computing: The Quest for Quantum Supremacy
I. Introduction & Quantum Context
Picture this: It's 2013, and while Silicon Valley obsesses over photo-sharing apps and food delivery startups, a physicist named Chad Rigetti is sketching quantum circuit diagrams in a Berkeley garage. He's not trying to make your Instagram feed load faster—he's trying to build a computer that operates on the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics, a machine that could render today's most powerful supercomputers as obsolete as an abacus.
The promise is staggering. Where a classical computer might take longer than the age of the universe to factor a 2,048-bit number (the kind used in RSA encryption), a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could crack it in hours. Drug discovery that requires simulating molecular interactions—currently impossible even for supercomputers—becomes tractable. Portfolio optimization, weather modeling, materials science: all transformed by machines that exploit quantum superposition and entanglement to explore millions of solution paths simultaneously. Rigetti Computing was founded in 2013 by Chad Rigetti, a physicist with a background in quantum computers from IBM, who studied under Michel Devoret at Yale. This wasn't your typical Silicon Valley startup story. While venture capitalists were pouring billions into on-demand services and social networks, Rigetti was betting that the fundamental architecture of computing itself was about to change.
The quantum computing promise operates on a scale that's difficult to comprehend. Consider protein folding—the process by which a chain of amino acids arranges itself into a three-dimensional structure. Misfolded proteins cause diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Simulating how proteins fold requires calculating interactions between thousands of atoms, each influencing all the others. A classical computer attempting this faces a combinatorial explosion: with just 100 amino acids, there are more possible configurations than atoms in the observable universe. A quantum computer, leveraging superposition, could explore these configurations simultaneously.
But here's the rub: building a quantum computer isn't just hard—it requires mastering physics at the edge of human understanding. Quantum bits, or qubits, must maintain coherence (their quantum state) for microseconds while operating at temperatures colder than deep space. Any vibration, any stray electromagnetic field, any thermal noise can cause decoherence, collapsing the quantum state and destroying the calculation.
Why does this story matter now? Because we're at an inflection point. After decades of laboratory experiments, quantum computers are beginning to demonstrate quantum advantage—solving specific problems faster than any classical computer could. The race isn't just academic anymore. It's a strategic competition between nations and corporations, with implications for cryptography, drug discovery, materials science, and artificial intelligence. The winner could fundamentally reshape multiple trillion-dollar industries.
This is the story of how Rigetti Computing went from a Berkeley garage to the NASDAQ, raised over $650 million, built quantum processors that push the boundaries of physics, and then watched its stock price collapse by over 90% as reality collided with quantum dreams. It's a tale of brilliant science, aggressive ambition, brutal market forces, and the ultimate question: can a startup compete with IBM and Google in building humanity's next computing platform?
II. The Founding Story: Chad Rigetti's Vision (2013-2014)
The quantum computing lab at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, looks like something out of science fiction. Dilution refrigerators the size of small rooms hum with the effort of cooling quantum processors to 15 millikelvin—nearly absolute zero. In 2012, Chad Rigetti was a research scientist at IBM, where he worked on developing quantum computing systems and algorithms. He'd completed his PhD at Yale under Michel Devoret, one of the pioneers of superconducting quantum circuits, learning to manipulate individual quantum states with microwave pulses.
But Rigetti saw something that troubled him. IBM, despite its technical prowess, moved with the deliberation of a century-old corporation. Decisions required layers of approval. Innovation happened in carefully planned cycles. The quantum computing group, while respected, competed for resources with divisions generating billions in revenue. Rigetti began sketching out calculations on napkins during lunch: What if you could move ten times faster with a startup's urgency? What if you could attract the world's best quantum physicists with equity instead of corporate titles?
The decision to leave IBM in 2013 wasn't just career risk—it was almost absurd. Quantum computing existed largely in academic papers and laboratory demonstrations. No venture capitalist understood qubits. No customer was asking for quantum processors. The conventional wisdom held that only governments and massive corporations could afford the hundreds of millions required to build quantum computers. Rigetti Computing was founded in 2013 by Chad Rigetti, aiming to develop practical quantum computers.
The company emerged from startup incubator Y Combinator in 2014 as a so-called "spaceshot" company. Picture the scene: Rigetti standing in front of the Y Combinator partners, explaining superconducting josephson junctions to investors more familiar with mobile apps. Sam Altman later recalled that they barely understood the physics, but Rigetti's conviction was magnetic. "He wasn't selling a product," Altman noted, "he was selling a future where computation itself was reimagined."
Y Combinator typically funds companies that can reach millions of users quickly. Rigetti couldn't even promise a working qubit within the program's three-month timeline. Yet they saw something profound: if Rigetti succeeded, the impact would dwarf any social network or marketplace. The batch that included Rigetti also featured companies building scheduling software and food delivery apps. Only one was attempting to harness quantum mechanics.
Later that year, Rigetti also participated in The Alchemist Accelerator, a venture capital programme focused on enterprise revenue. This was strategic—while Y Combinator provided credibility in Silicon Valley, Alchemist connected Rigetti with potential enterprise customers and investors who understood long development cycles. The accelerator's founder, Ravi Belani, became an early advocate, helping Rigetti articulate why businesses should care about quantum computing years before commercial applications.
The early days in Berkeley were spartan. Rigetti Computing is headquartered in Berkeley, California, where it hosts developmental systems and cooling equipment. The first "lab" was a converted warehouse where Rigetti and a handful of physicists worked eighteen-hour days, building their own dilution refrigerators because commercial ones cost millions. They scavenged parts from eBay, modified microwave components meant for cell towers, and wrote control software from scratch.
The fundamental technical bet was critical: The company focused on superconducting qubits for scalable quantum systems. Why superconducting qubits over competing approaches like trapped ions or topological qubits? Rigetti's reasoning was pragmatic. Superconducting qubits could leverage decades of semiconductor fabrication expertise. They operated at nanosecond speeds, thousands of times faster than trapped ions. Most importantly, they could theoretically scale using techniques similar to those that put billions of transistors on silicon chips.
But choosing superconducting qubits meant accepting brutal engineering challenges. These qubits required temperatures colder than deep space, precision microwave control, and isolation from virtually all environmental noise. A cosmic ray passing through the chip could destroy quantum coherence. The margin for error was essentially zero.
Initial funding was nearly impossible to secure. Rigetti pitched dozens of venture firms in 2013 and 2014, often receiving puzzled looks when he explained quantum superposition. One prominent Sand Hill Road partner allegedly asked, "Is this like blockchain?" The few investors who understood the physics questioned the economics: Why would anyone invest in a technology that might take twenty years to commercialize?
The early believers were crucial. Early funding came from seed rounds, attracting investors interested in quantum technology. These weren't typical venture capitalists but rather a mix of deep-tech enthusiasts, former physicists who'd moved to finance, and strategic investors who saw quantum as potentially disrupting their industries. Every dollar was precious—Rigetti famously continued living in a modest apartment and driving a decade-old Honda Civic even after raising initial funding, pouring everything into the company.
The team Rigetti assembled was extraordinary. He recruited physicists from MIT, Caltech, and other quantum research centers, often convincing them to leave tenure-track positions for equity in a company with no product. The founding team's expertise in superconducting circuits and quantum physics was crucial. The pitch wasn't money—academic salaries were often higher than what the startup could pay. Instead, Rigetti sold them on speed and impact: "At IBM, your qubit design might be tested in two years. Here, we'll fabricate it next month."
By late 2014, Rigetti Computing had a team of eight physicists, a converted warehouse with jury-rigged quantum equipment, and a vision that seemed impossibly ambitious. They were attempting to compete with IBM, Google, and nation-state research programs with a fraction of the resources. But they had something their competitors lacked: the urgency of a startup burning through limited runway and the focused obsession of a founder who'd bet everything on quantum. The stage was set for what would become one of the most audacious attempts to commercialize fundamental physics in Silicon Valley history.
III. Building the Stack: From Chips to Cloud (2015-2017)
February 2016 marked a pivotal moment. In a cramped Berkeley lab cooled to near absolute zero, Rigetti created its first quantum processor, a three-qubit chip made using aluminum circuits on a silicon wafer. Three qubits might sound trivial—your smartphone has billions of transistors—but those three qubits represented a working quantum system that could maintain coherence, execute gates, and be measured. The team celebrated with champagne served in coffee mugs, understanding they'd crossed from theory to hardware.
The strategic decision that would define Rigetti's trajectory came next: commissioning Fab-1 in 2016. Since being established in 2016 as the world's first dedicated quantum foundry, Rigetti's Fab-1 has been used for fabricating chips for internal research and development for the Company's state-of-the-art quantum systems. Located in Fremont, California, this wasn't just a laboratory—it was a statement of intent. While competitors outsourced fabrication or relied on university cleanrooms, Rigetti was building the infrastructure to iterate on quantum processors at startup speed.
The economics seemed insane. A single piece of equipment for the fab could cost millions. The facility required specialized engineers who understood both quantum physics and semiconductor manufacturing—a combination so rare that Rigetti often had to train them from scratch. But Chad Rigetti understood something his investors initially didn't: in quantum computing, the ability to rapidly prototype and test new designs would be the difference between leadership and irrelevance.
Located in Fremont, CA, Rigetti's FAB-1 engineers combine conventional CMOS processes with novel manufacturing methods to produce state-of-the-art superconducting devices ideal for quantum computing, sensing, and networking systems. The facility allowed Rigetti to go from design to fabricated chip in weeks, not months. When a researcher had an idea for improving qubit coherence, they could test it immediately rather than waiting in line at a shared facility.
The funding to support this ambition came in waves. That same year, Rigetti raised Series A funding of US$24 million in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Marc Andreessen's firm, known for software bets, was making one of its first deep hardware investments. The partner championing the deal, Vijay Pande, was himself a physicist who understood the potential. "Software is eating the world," Andreessen famously said, "but quantum will eat software."
In November, the company secured Series B funding of $40 million in a round led by investment firm Vy Capital, along with additional funding from Andreessen Horowitz and other investors. The back-to-back raises in 2016—$64 million total—gave Rigetti the runway to execute on the full-stack vision. This wasn't just about building better qubits; it was about creating an entire computing platform.
By Spring of 2017, Rigetti had advanced to testing eight-qubit quantum computers. The progress from three to eight qubits in just over a year demonstrated the power of owning the fabrication process. Each iteration taught them something new about reducing noise, improving gate fidelity, and scaling the architecture.
Then came the masterstroke: In June, the company announced the release of Forest 1.0, a quantum computing platform designed to enable developers to create quantum algorithms. Forest wasn't just software—it was Rigetti's bid to own the entire quantum computing stack. The platform included Quil (Quantum Instruction Language), a custom programming language that allowed hybrid quantum-classical computing. Developers could write quantum algorithms and test them on simulators, with the promise of running them on real quantum hardware through the cloud.
The full-stack approach was controversial even within Rigetti. Some board members argued they should focus solely on hardware and let others build the software ecosystem. But Chad Rigetti insisted: to make quantum computing practical, you needed to control every layer from the metal to the cloud. It was the same philosophy that made Apple dominant—integration created possibilities that modular approaches couldn't match.
The company was recognized in 2016 by X-Prize founder Peter Diamandis as being one of the three leaders in the quantum computing space, along with IBM and Google. This wasn't just industry hype—Diamandis, who'd spent his career identifying breakthrough technologies, saw Rigetti as a legitimate competitor to tech giants with thousand-fold larger budgets.
The contrast with IBM and Google was striking. IBM had decades of quantum research and billions in resources but moved with corporate deliberation. Google had recruited John Martinis and his entire UCSB quantum team, throwing enormous resources at the problem. Rigetti had neither legacy nor limitless capital. What it had was speed, integration, and the focused intensity of a startup where every employee owned equity tied to quantum success.
By the end of 2017, Rigetti had achieved something remarkable: a full-stack quantum computing company with its own fabrication facility, working quantum processors, and a cloud platform for quantum software development. The three-year-old startup was competing head-to-head with companies worth hundreds of billions. The foundation was laid for what would become one of the most ambitious attempts to commercialize quantum computing. But building the technology was just the beginning—next came the challenge of finding customers willing to pay for quantum computation that was still years from practical advantage.
IV. The Commercialization Push & Cloud Era (2018-2020)
The year 2018 opened with Rigetti facing an existential question: How do you commercialize a technology that doesn't yet work better than classical computers for any practical problem? The answer would reshape not just Rigetti's strategy, but the entire quantum computing industry's approach to market development.
In 2018, Rigetti launched its first commercially available 19-qubit quantum processor. But the real innovation wasn't the hardware—it was the recognition that quantum computers wouldn't replace classical systems but would work alongside them. This insight led to one of the most important announcements in the company's history: the launch of Rigetti Quantum Cloud Services (QCS) in September 2018.
Quantum Cloud Services is the only quantum-first cloud computing platform. With QCS, for the first time, quantum processors are tightly integrated with classical computing infrastructure to deliver the application-level performance needed to achieve quantum advantage. The platform represented a fundamental reimagining of how quantum computing would be delivered to customers.
Chad Rigetti stood on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018, explaining to an audience more familiar with social media apps why quantum-classical hybrid computing mattered. The reason the hybrid approach is faster is simply because the two systems are closely integrated — and you will likely always need a classical computer in parallel with a quantum computer for solving virtually any problem. And the company expects that this hybrid approach — and likely the 128-qubit machine that Rigetti plans to launch next year — will allow for running an algorithm that demonstrates quantum advantage.
The technical innovations in QCS were groundbreaking. With co-located classical and quantum hosts, jobs that once took seconds now take milliseconds. This low-latency network access to hardware makes QCS the fastest quantum computing platform available. The platform reduced latency by 20-to-50x compared to traditional web API models—crucial for algorithms that required rapid iteration between quantum and classical processing.
To catalyze ecosystem development, Rigetti Computing is offering a $1 million prize for the first conclusive demonstration of quantum advantage on QCS. More details of the prize will be announced on October 30th, 2018. This wasn't just marketing—it was a calculated bet that someone, somewhere, would find the killer application that justified billions in quantum investment.
We're thrilled to open Rigetti Quantum Cloud Services (QCS™) to public beta today. The QCS platform introduces an entirely new access model for quantum programming that is centered on an integrated cloud architecture. The public beta launch in early 2019 included $5,000 in QPU usage credits for each user—enough for over 5 hours of quantum processor time, democratizing access to technology that had been confined to well-funded laboratories.
The ecosystem strategy was equally important. Rigetti also identified a number of start-ups it is working with to develop applications and to act as a channel to distribute these applications to a broader community of developers and researchers. The companies include: 1QBit, Entropica Labs, Heisenberg Quantum Simulation, Horizon Quantum Computing, OTI Lumionics, ProteinQure, QC Ware, Qulab, QxBranch, Riverlane Research, Strangeworks, and Zapata Computing.
These partnerships weren't just press releases. Each represented a bet on a different quantum application: drug discovery with ProteinQure, materials science with OTI Lumionics, financial modeling with 1QBit. Rigetti provided these startups with preferential access to quantum hardware, technical support, and sometimes investment. In return, these companies would build the applications that might demonstrate real quantum advantage. The ecosystem building continued through 2019. More than 30 leading scientists from around the world have signed on as QCS Research Partners. Their work ranges from characterizing and benchmarking quantum hardware to computational research across biology, chemistry, and machine learning. Rigetti wasn't just selling access to quantum computers—they were building a community of researchers who would discover what quantum computers were actually good for.
By 2019, the company had released its Aspen-series processors and partnered with AWS Braket, making its quantum processors available through Amazon's cloud platform. This was strategic genius—rather than competing with AWS, Rigetti became a supplier to the cloud giant, instantly gaining access to millions of potential customers.
The 2020 funding round was a watershed moment. In 2020, Rigetti also announced a $119 million funding round, led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and also featuring participation from existing investors such as Andreessen Horowitz to accelerate its efforts in developing a general-purpose quantum computer. Peter Thiel, the contrarian billionaire who'd made early bets on Facebook and Palantir, was now backing quantum computing. His investment thesis was characteristically bold: quantum computing would either transform civilization or prove impossible, but the asymmetric upside justified the risk.
The funding came at a critical juncture. Competition was intensifying dramatically. IBM had pushed its quantum roadmap aggressively, promising 1,000-qubit systems. Google had claimed "quantum supremacy" in 2019 with its Sycamore processor, though the achievement was controversial—the problem it solved had no practical application. IonQ, using trapped ion technology, was making impressive claims about qubit fidelity. D-Wave, the oldest quantum computing company, continued to advance its quantum annealing systems.
For Rigetti, the challenge wasn't just technical—it was existential. The company had to demonstrate progress toward practical quantum advantage while burning millions in cash monthly. Quantum processors required constant maintenance, dilution refrigerators consumed enormous amounts of helium, and the engineering team was among the most expensive in Silicon Valley. Revenue remained minimal—mostly from government research contracts and cloud access fees that barely covered operational costs.
The pressure to show commercial viability was mounting. In board meetings, investors began asking harder questions: When would quantum computers solve real problems? How much more capital would be needed? What if IBM or Google achieved quantum advantage first? Chad Rigetti's responses were always the same: they were on the cusp of breakthroughs, the technology was progressing exponentially, and being first to market with practical quantum computing would create a winner-take-all dynamic.
But privately, the strain was showing. The company's burn rate was accelerating while technical milestones kept slipping. Error rates remained stubbornly high. Coherence times were improving but not fast enough. The promise of quantum computing always seemed to be "five years away"—a running joke in the industry that was becoming less funny as investors' patience wore thin.
By the end of 2020, Rigetti had built an impressive quantum computing platform. It had 80-qubit processors in development, a cloud platform with thousands of users, and partnerships with major corporations. But it also faced a harsh reality: despite seven years of development and over $200 million in funding, not a single quantum computer—from Rigetti or anyone else—had demonstrated practical advantage for any real-world problem. The stage was set for a dramatic next chapter: going public in the midst of a SPAC boom that would test whether public markets were ready to bet on quantum's distant promise.
V. The SPAC Era: Going Public (2021-2022)
The announcement came on October 6, 2021, at the peak of SPAC mania. Rigetti, a pioneer in full-stack quantum computing, announced today it has entered into a definitive merger agreement with Supernova Partners Acquisition Company II, Ltd. ("Supernova II") (NYSE:SNII), a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company. The business combination values the combined entity at a pro forma equity value of approximately $1.5 billion.
The SPAC was led by an all-star team: Michael Clifton, an investor who most recently helped lead global technology investing at The Carlyle Group; Robert Reid, a long-time senior partner at Blackstone; Spencer Rascoff, a serial entrepreneur who co-founded Hotwire, Zillow, dot.LA and Pacaso and who led Zillow as CEO for nearly a decade; and Alexander Klabin, founder and CEO of Ancient and former managing partner, co-CIO and co-founder of Senator Investment Group. This wasn't a typical SPAC assembled by financial engineers—these were technology veterans who understood long development cycles.
Chad Rigetti's pitch to public markets was audacious: "In the next decade one Rigetti quantum computer could be more powerful than today's entire global cloud. Rigetti is the leading innovator in this space. Our team has solved the most pressing scientific problems associated with bringing quantum computing to market by creating a scalable computer and high-performance integration with existing computing systems."
The numbers promised were staggering. Rigetti reported revenue of $5.5 million for the year ended Jan. 31, 2021, and a net loss of $26.1 million. It estimates revenue to grow to $288 million by 2025, and $594 million by 2026. From $5.5 million to nearly $600 million in five years—a 100x increase that would make even aggressive software companies jealous.
Upon closing, the combined company will receive approximately $458 million in gross cash proceeds, including a fully committed PIPE in excess of $100 million, direct investment, and $345 million of cash held in the trust account of Supernova II, assuming no redemptions. The PIPE investors read like a who's who of institutional technology investing: funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc.; Bessemer Venture Partners; Franklin Templeton; and In-Q-Tel.
The strategic investors were equally impressive: Keysight Technologies and Palantir Technologies. Palantir's involvement was particularly intriguing—Peter Thiel's data analytics giant saw quantum computing as critical to future intelligence and defense applications. The involvement of In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital arm, underscored the national security implications of quantum computing.
The roadmap Rigetti presented to investors was ambitious to the point of fantasy: Rigetti expects to scale its quantum computers from 80 qubits in 2021 to 1,000 qubits in 2024, and to 4,000 qubits in 2026. But qubit count alone didn't tell the story—what mattered was gate fidelity, coherence time, and connectivity. Rigetti was promising not just more qubits, but better qubits, arranged in a modular architecture that could scale indefinitely.
The SPAC market was already showing cracks by October 2021. There was a SPAC boom starting in 2020 that continued into this year, with 456 SPAC IPOs in 2021, according to SPACInsider. But the aftermarket performance of SPACs has steadily fallen over the past several months. High-profile failures like Nikola and Lordstown Motors had made investors wary of pre-revenue companies making bold technological claims.
Rigetti's competitor IonQ had gone public just days earlier through its own SPAC merger, valued at $2 billion. The quantum computing sector was suddenly hot—two major quantum companies going public within a week of each other. But this also meant direct comparison. IonQ used trapped ion technology, which had better gate fidelity but slower operation. The market would now judge which approach would win. The SPAC deal closed on 2 March 2022, and Rigetti began trading on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol RGTI. The timing could not have been worse. The Federal Reserve had begun raising interest rates to combat inflation. Growth stocks were being massacred. The NASDAQ was entering what would become its worst year since 2008.
Rigetti went public in March 2022 via a SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) merger with Supernova Partners Acquisition Company II. Initially, investor enthusiasm pushed its valuation high, but like many SPAC listings, Rigetti struggled to maintain momentum. The stock, which had traded around $10 in the SPAC trust, quickly began sliding. Within months, it would fall below $2, a decline of over 80%.
The public market brutality exposed a fundamental problem: Rigetti was burning cash with minimal revenue while promising breakthroughs that remained years away. The stock experienced sharp declines as broader tech and speculative growth stocks faced a bear market. 2023 saw Rigetti trading mostly sideways, reflecting uncertainty about its near-term revenue streams. In 2024, as quantum computing gained attention from governments and enterprises, Rigetti's stock showed renewed interest, though volatility remained high.
For Chad Rigetti, watching his company's valuation collapse must have been agonizing. The public markets demanded quarterly results, concrete milestones, and a path to profitability. But quantum computing didn't work on quarterly cycles. Every breakthrough required years of research. Every customer win required extensive education and proof of concept. The disconnect between public market expectations and quantum reality was becoming unbearable.
Board meetings grew tense. The new independent directors, brought in for the public company, asked harder questions. Why were error rates still so high? When would quantum advantage be demonstrated? How much more capital would be needed? Chad Rigetti's responses—the same patient explanations about the nature of fundamental research—began to sound hollow against the backdrop of a cratering stock price.
Meanwhile, competition was intensifying. IBM announced its 433-qubit Osprey processor, far exceeding Rigetti's capabilities. Google published papers showing progress toward error correction. IonQ claimed superior gate fidelities. Every competitor announcement sent Rigetti's stock lower, regardless of the technical nuances that distinguished different approaches.
The PIPE investors who'd bought in at the merger were underwater. Employees who'd joined for equity saw their options worthless. The company that had promised to revolutionize computing was now fighting for survival, needing to balance long-term research with short-term financial pressures. The stage was set for dramatic changes in leadership—changes that would fundamentally alter Rigetti's trajectory.
VI. Leadership Transition: The Founder Departs (2022)
The announcement came on October 28, 2022, though it wouldn't be official until December. Chad Rigetti will be transitioning from his position as President and CEO to 'focus on advancing the company's products and technology'. However, it was then announced he will be leaving the company. After nine years building Rigetti Computing from a Berkeley garage to a public company, the founder was out.
The departure timing was telling. Dr. Kulkarni was most recently President, CEO, and member of the Board of CyberOptics Corporation, a developer and manufacturer of high precision sensors and inspection systems for the semiconductor industry. He held these roles from 2014 until CyberOptics was acquired by Nordson Corporation in November 2022. Just weeks after successfully selling CyberOptics, Kulkarni was taking the helm at Rigetti. This wasn't a leisurely CEO search—it was a rapid transition orchestrated by a board that had lost confidence in the founder's ability to navigate public markets.
The official statements were diplomatic. The board praised Chad Rigetti's vision and technical contributions. With thirty-plus years of spearheading innovation in the semiconductor industry, Subodh has the unique ability to speak the language of engineers, physicists, and businesspeople alike. The message was clear: Rigetti needed someone who could bridge the gap between quantum dreams and quarterly earnings.
For Chad Rigetti, the departure must have been devastating. He'd dedicated a decade to quantum computing, convinced investors to bet hundreds of millions on his vision, recruited brilliant physicists to leave stable careers, and built infrastructure that didn't exist anywhere else. Now, with the company bearing his name struggling as a public entity, he was being pushed aside for a professional manager.
But the board's logic was understandable. The stock had fallen over 90% from its SPAC price. Quantum computing firm Rigetti is facing possible delisting from the Nasdaq stock exchange over the low value of its stock. In a recent SEC filing, the company said it has been notified by the Nasdaq that the company's common stock had not maintained a minimum bid price of $1 per share, contravening its bid pricing rules. The company needed someone who could manage costs, set realistic expectations, and navigate the brutal reality of being a pre-revenue public company.
Dr. Subodh Kulkarni will join the Company as President and Chief Executive Officer, effective December 12, 2022. His background was perfect for the moment: Prior to CyberOptics, Dr. Kulkarni was CEO of Prism Computational Sciences, a developer of software tools for scientific and commercial applications in the semiconductor industry. Earlier in his career, he held additional leadership positions, including Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of OEM/Emerging business, global commercial business, R&D and manufacturing at Imation, a global scalable storage and data security company. Dr. Kulkarni began his career in research and management positions with 3M Corporation and IBM.
Kulkarni's first public statement struck a different tone than his predecessor's grand visions: "Rigetti's mission to build the world's most powerful computers to help solve humanity's most important and pressing problems greatly inspires me," commented Dr. Kulkarni. "Quantum represents the first paradigm change in computer technology in the seventy-five years since the transistor was created. I am humbled and honored by the opportunity to support Rigetti's brilliant technologists and build upon its many achievements so far. I look forward to working with this exceptionally talented team to further develop, scale, and commercialize Rigetti's full-stack hybrid quantum computing offering." The emphasis on "commercialize" was telling—this was now about turning quantum computing into a business, not just advancing the science.
The transition wasn't just about the CEO role. The entire leadership culture would shift from founder-driven innovation to professional management. Engineers who'd joined to work with Chad Rigetti now reported to executives who'd never built a qubit. The freewheeling research culture that had produced breakthroughs would be replaced by milestone-driven development with clear commercial objectives.
Some employees left with the founder, following him to new ventures or returning to academia. Others saw opportunity in the new structure—finally, someone who could translate their technical achievements into customer contracts and revenue growth. The company that emerged from this transition would be fundamentally different: less romantic, more pragmatic, focused on survival rather than revolution.
The departure of Chad Rigetti marked the end of quantum computing's startup phase at the company. What had begun as a physicist's dream in a Berkeley garage was now a public company with quarterly earnings calls, NASDAQ compliance requirements, and investors demanding returns. The question was whether Kulkarni could achieve what had eluded the founder: proving that quantum computing could be not just scientifically remarkable, but commercially viable. The clock was ticking, the cash was burning, and the quantum advantage that would justify everything remained frustratingly out of reach.
VII. The Kulkarni Era: Execution & Evolution (2023-2024)
Subodh Kulkarni's first months as CEO were about triage. The company was burning cash, facing NASDAQ delisting threats, and had a demoralized workforce watching their equity compensation evaporate. His approach was methodical, almost surgical—identify what was working, cut what wasn't, and set achievable milestones that would rebuild credibility.
The transformation began with a simple but profound shift in messaging. Where Chad Rigetti had promised revolution, Kulkarni promised evolution. "Rigetti's focus on improving our median 2-qubit fidelities is a crucial part of our mission to build the world's most powerful computers. Useful quantum computers will need not only a large number of qubits, but also high quality qubits," Kulkarni stated in early 2023. No more talk of quantum supremacy by next year—instead, incremental improvements measured in percentage points of gate fidelity.
In December 2023, Rigetti launched the Novera QPU (quantum processing unit), a 9-qubit QPU based on the Company's Ankaa™-class chip architecture. This might seem like a step backward—nine qubits when competitors were pushing hundreds—but it was strategic genius. The Novera QPU is Rigetti's first commercially available QPU. After identifying an emerging market of researchers needing hands-on access to a quantum computer with high performing qubits, Rigetti made the strategic decision to meet the anticipated growing demand with its in-house quantum foundry capabilities and years of experience building 9-qubit QPUs for internal R&D.
The Novera represented a fundamental rethinking of Rigetti's business model. Instead of only selling cloud access to researchers who couldn't afford their own quantum computers, why not sell them the quantum processors directly? Universities and research labs could integrate these QPUs into their existing cryogenic systems, giving them hands-on experience with real quantum hardware. The price point—while not disclosed publicly—was rumored to be in the hundreds of thousands rather than millions, making it accessible to well-funded research groups.
But the real breakthrough came with the Ankaa series. The Company's 84-qubit Ankaa™-2 system is now publicly available to all of its customers via Rigetti Quantum Cloud Services (QCS™). The Ankaa-2 system has achieved a 98% median 2-qubit fidelity, a 2.5x performance improvement compared to the Company's previous QPUs. BERKELEY, Calif., Jan. 04, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rigetti Computing, Inc. (Nasdaq: RGTI) ("Rigetti" or the "Company"), a pioneer in full-stack quantum-classical computing, announced today that its 84-qubit Ankaa™-2 quantum system was made publicly available to all of its customers via Rigetti's Quantum Cloud Services (QCS™) on December 20, 2023. The Ankaa-2 system is based on Rigetti's fourth generation chip architecture that features tunable couplers and a square lattice, enabling high fidelity 2-qubit operations compared to the Company's previous systems. Ankaa-2 is also the Company's highest qubit count quantum processing unit (QPU) available to the public.
The technical improvements were substantial but unglamorous. As a result, Ankaa-2 achieved a 2% median 2-qubit gate error rate — less than half the error rate of the Company's previous systems. These fidelity improvements can be attributed to a variety of technology updates to the Ankaa-2 system: Implementation of a new chip fabrication process, leading to qubits with fewer atomic defects that would otherwise reduce quantum coherence times · Incorporation of new superconducting PCB technology that improves thermal performance · Electronics improvements that generate control signals with less noise
Then came December 2024, and what might be Rigetti's most significant achievement to date. BERKELEY, Calif., Dec. 23, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rigetti Computing, Inc. (Nasdaq: RGTI) ("Rigetti" or the "Company"), a pioneer in full-stack quantum-classical computing, announced today the public launch of its 84-qubit Ankaa-3 system. Ankaa-3 is Rigetti's newest flagship quantum computer featuring an extensive hardware redesign that enables superior performance. Rigetti also celebrates major two-qubit gate fidelity milestones with Ankaa-3: successfully halving error rates in 2024 to achieve a median 99.0% iSWAP gate fidelity, as well as demonstrating 99.5% median fidelity fSim gates.
The 99.5% gate fidelity achievement was a watershed moment. This wasn't just an incremental improvement—it crossed a psychological threshold that put Rigetti in the same conversation as Google's latest systems. Users will be able to operate these higher fidelity and universal iSWAP gates for a wide range of algorithmic research, with a median gate time of 72 nanoseconds. The faster (median 56 nanoseconds), more specialized fSim gates are useful for specific algorithms such as random circuit sampling, as recently demonstrated on Google's Willow system.
The technical innovations behind Ankaa-3 reflected a company that had learned from its mistakes. The Ankaa-3 chip features the hallmarks of Rigetti's Ankaa-class chip architecture with a square lattice of qubits and tunable couplers. The 84-qubit chip's Josephson junctions are manufactured using Rigetti's novel ABAA technique. ABAA allows for precise qubit frequency targeting, which enables better execution of two-qubit gates and increases in yield, both of which contribute to higher fidelity. Financial discipline became another hallmark of the Kulkarni era. Q3 2024 net loss of $14.8 million represented careful cost management even as the company pushed technical boundaries. But perhaps more importantly, Rigetti sold a Novera QPU to Montana State University (MSU) in December 2024, which was the Company's first QPU sale to an academic institution. The Novera will be located at MSU's QCORE to educate and train scientists and engineers on quantum computing technologies, in addition to being used to create a testbed for quantum computing R&D.
This sale to Montana State was more than a single transaction—it validated an entirely new business model. Universities wanted quantum computers not just for research but for education. A generation of quantum engineers needed hands-on experience with real quantum hardware. Rigetti was positioning itself as the supplier to this emerging educational market, with systems priced for academic budgets rather than corporate research labs.
The Novera QPU Partner Program launched in April 2024 represented another strategic pivot. Instead of trying to build everything themselves, Rigetti created an ecosystem where partners could integrate their control systems, software, and services with Rigetti's quantum processors. Quantum Elements, Qruise, and Quantum Machines are members of Rigetti's Novera QPU Partner Program -- an ecosystem of quantum computing hardware, software, and service providers who build and offer integral components of a functional quantum computing system.
By December 2024, the transformation was complete. Rigetti wasn't the company Chad Rigetti had founded—it was something different, perhaps less romantic but more sustainable. We believe that superconducting qubits are the winning modality for quantum computers given their fast gate speeds and scalability. We've developed critical IP to scale our systems and remain confident in our plans to scale to 100+ qubits by the end of the year with a targeted 2x reduction in error rates from the error rates we achieved at the end of 2024, Kulkarni stated.
The roadmap for 2025 was ambitious but achievable: a 36-qubit modular system demonstrating that multiple chips could work together, setting the stage for the 336-qubit Lyra system that would follow. No more promises of quantum supremacy next year—instead, steady progress measured in gate fidelity improvements and customer wins.
The Kulkarni era had stabilized Rigetti, transforming it from a company perpetually on the brink of either breakthrough or bankruptcy into something more boring but more durable: a quantum computing supplier with real customers, improving products, and a path to profitability that didn't require miraculous breakthroughs. Whether this would be enough to win the quantum race remained to be seen, but at least Rigetti would still be in the race.
VIII. Technology Deep Dive: The Rigetti Approach
The fundamental choice that defines every quantum computing company is the qubit modality—the physical system used to encode quantum information. Rigetti's bet on superconducting qubits wasn't just a technical decision; it was a philosophical stance about how quantum computers would ultimately scale.
Superconducting qubits are artificial atoms created from electrical circuits operating at temperatures near absolute zero. At these temperatures, certain materials become superconductors—carrying electrical current with zero resistance. By creating circuits with Josephson junctions (thin insulating barriers between superconductors), engineers can create quantum systems with discrete energy levels that behave like atoms but can be designed and controlled with precision.
The advantages are compelling. Superconducting qubits operate at speeds measured in nanoseconds. Gate speeds: 60-80ns, 2x faster than competitors, 3-4 orders of magnitude faster than trapped ion systems. This speed advantage isn't just about bragging rights—it fundamentally changes what algorithms are practical. A calculation requiring a million operations takes milliseconds on superconducting systems versus seconds on trapped ion computers.
But the challenges are equally daunting. Superconducting qubits require dilution refrigerators that cool chips to 15 millikelvin—colder than deep space. Any thermal energy, any stray photon, any vibration can cause decoherence. The qubits themselves are fragile, with coherence times measured in microseconds. Every connection, every component, every material choice affects performance.
Rigetti's breakthrough innovation was the Alternating-Bias Assisted Annealing (ABAA) technique. The basis of Rigetti's superconducting qubits are Josephson Junctions (JJs), which are two thin layers of superconducting metal (aluminum) separated by a barrier (aluminum oxide). Finding a solution to the junction reproducibility problem has been a long-standing goal in the field. Rigetti researchers discovered that by applying a series of low, alternating voltages at room temperature to the oxide barrier, the qubit frequencies can be precisely targeted.
This might sound like a minor technical detail, but it solved one of quantum computing's most vexing problems. Manufacturing variation meant that qubits on the same chip would have slightly different frequencies, making it difficult to execute precise operations. ABAA allows for precise qubit frequency targeting, which enables better execution of two-qubit gates and increases in yield, both of which contribute to higher fidelity. Unlike more complicated solutions that address the problem of tuning frequency, which often require laser trimming of the chip, the ABAA technique is a simple and scalable process.
The modular architecture represents Rigetti's most important strategic bet. Instead of building ever-larger monolithic chips—the approach taken by IBM and Google—Rigetti developed a way to connect multiple smaller chips. The Ankaa-3 system continues to feature Rigetti's scalable, industry-leading chip architecture with 3D signal delivery while incorporating major enhancements to key technologies. This 3D architecture routes signals vertically through the chip rather than from the edges, enabling denser qubit arrays with better connectivity.
The comparison with other approaches is instructive. Trapped ion systems, used by IonQ and Honeywell, trap individual atoms using electromagnetic fields. They achieve better gate fidelities—often exceeding 99.5%—and have all-to-all connectivity, meaning any qubit can interact with any other. But they're slow, with gate times measured in microseconds or milliseconds. Scaling beyond hundreds of qubits requires complex shuttling of ions between trapping zones.
Photonic approaches, pursued by PsiQuantum and Xanadu, use photons as qubits. Photons don't require cooling and are naturally resistant to noise. But creating interactions between photons is extraordinarily difficult, requiring complex optical circuits and probabilistic operations. The technology remains years from practical quantum computing.
Topological qubits, Microsoft's chosen approach, would theoretically be immune to many forms of error. But after decades of research, no one has definitively created even a single topological qubit. It remains more theoretical physics than engineering. The path to practical quantum computing requires solving the error correction problem. October 31, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rigetti (Nasdaq: RGTI), a pioneer in full-stack quantum-classical computing, announced the successful demonstration of real-time and low latency quantum error correction on a Rigetti quantum computer. Fault tolerance is the point at which lengthy operations can execute without a single error, due to the application of quantum error correction. This experiment demonstrated decoding times faster than the 1 microsecond threshold for generating measurement data on a superconducting qubit device — ensuring that the backlog problem is avoided and showcasing that low-latency feedback can be maintained during quantum error correction operations.
The collaboration with Riverlane represents Rigetti's understanding that quantum computing requires an ecosystem. It demonstrates the ability of Riverlane's QEC technology to integrate seamlessly with fast-feedback control systems, resulting in the world's first low-latency QEC experiment. This wasn't just a technical achievement—it was validation that Rigetti's architecture could support the error correction required for fault-tolerant quantum computing.
The speed advantage of superconducting qubits becomes crucial for error correction. A significant benefit of superconducting qubits is that we can attain much higher gate speeds than other modalities. Rigetti's system gate speeds consistently achieve an active duration of 60-80ns, which is four orders of magnitude faster than systems based on ion traps and pure atoms. When you're running error correction protocols that require thousands of operations, this speed difference compounds dramatically.
The AI-powered calibration announced in December 2024 represents another technological frontier. AI-powered tools from Quantum Elements and Qruise remotely automated the calibration of a Rigetti QPU integrated with Quantum Machines' control system. Quantum computers require constant recalibration as environmental conditions shift minutely. Using machine learning to optimize these calibrations automatically could be the difference between quantum computers that work in laboratories and those that function reliably in production environments.
Rigetti's technological approach reflects hard-won wisdom about what matters in quantum computing. It's not just about qubit count—IBM has more. It's not just about gate fidelity—IonQ's is higher. It's about finding the sweet spot where speed, scale, fidelity, and manufacturability intersect. The modular architecture, the ABAA technique, the 3D signal routing—each innovation addresses a specific bottleneck in the path to practical quantum computing.
The ultimate test will be demonstrating quantum advantage for a practical problem. Not the contrived mathematical constructs that Google used to claim quantum supremacy, but real applications that matter to customers. Drug discovery, materials science, optimization problems—these are the proving grounds where Rigetti's approach will either triumph or fail. The technology is impressive, the progress undeniable, but the quantum computing race is far from decided.
IX. Partnerships, Competition & Market Dynamics
The quantum computing landscape in 2024 resembles the early days of the internet—everyone knows it will be transformative, but nobody knows exactly how or when. In this environment, partnerships aren't just strategic advantages; they're survival mechanisms for navigating technical uncertainty and market immaturity.
Rigetti's cloud platform partnerships read like a who's who of technology infrastructure. The company's quantum processors are available through Amazon Braket, Microsoft Azure, and have been integrated with Google Cloud—a remarkable achievement given that all three companies have their own quantum computing initiatives. This omnipresence strategy ensures that wherever developers experiment with quantum computing, Rigetti is an option.
The partnership dynamics are fascinating. Amazon, despite its massive AWS infrastructure, hasn't built its own quantum hardware, instead offering access to multiple vendors including Rigetti, IonQ, and D-Wave. Microsoft, after years pursuing topological qubits with no hardware to show, needs real quantum computers to offer through Azure Quantum. Google, despite having its own impressive quantum hardware, recognizes that ecosystem diversity strengthens the entire field.
The government contracts tell only part of the story. Rigetti was awarded a five-year Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract with the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) Information Directorate to supply its researchers with quantum foundry services, allowing AFRL to leverage Rigetti's fabrication and manufacturing capabilities to build customized quantum systems including quantum integrated circuits (QuICs), quantum-limited amplifiers, cryogenic microwave components, and 9Q QPUs. In September 2025, an even more significant contract emerged: Rigetti was awarded a three-year, $5.8 million contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to advance superconducting quantum networking, collaborating with Dutch quantum startup QphoX.
This project aims to deliver systems providing entanglement between superconducting qubits and optical photons, the essential building block of quantum networking, building on Rigetti and QphoX's successful demonstration of qubit-transducer systems working together to perform optical single-shot qubit readout. The strategic importance can't be overstated—quantum networking could enable distributed quantum computing, where multiple smaller processors work together to solve problems beyond any single machine's capability.
The competitive landscape of quantum computing in 2024 resembles a high-stakes chess match where each player pursues fundamentally different strategies. Major quantum computing companies, including IBM, Google, Microsoft, Rigetti, D-Wave, IonQ, Quantinuum, Intel, and Amazon, have outlined roadmaps with varying approaches and timelines to achieving quantum advantage, focusing on different quantum architectures, such as superconducting qubits, trapped ions, topological qubits, and quantum annealing, with milestones ranging from near-term practical applications to long-term fault-tolerant computing, though significant challenges remain, including qubit stability, error correction, scalability, and integration with classical computing.
IBM remains the colossus, having announced its 433-qubit Osprey processor and promising 1,000-qubit systems. International Business Machines Corp.'s entry into the next phase of quantum computing with its yesterday's announcement of IBM Quantum Starling, a large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer projected to perform 20,000 times more operations than today's machines, may signal a new competitive threat within this niche, with IBM's renewed push heating up the quantum race. The company leverages decades of research, unlimited resources, and deep enterprise relationships—but moves with the deliberation of a century-old corporation.
Google's approach differs fundamentally. After claiming quantum supremacy in 2019 with Sycamore, they've focused on error correction and building toward fault-tolerant systems. The top-performing quantum computers, like those made by Google (with its 105-qubit Willow chip) and IBM (which has made the 121-qubit Condor), use qubits in which information is encoded in the wavefunction of a superconducting material. Their recent Willow chip demonstrated exceptional performance, but Google's quantum efforts remain research-focused rather than commercially oriented.
IonQ represents the trapped ion alternative to superconducting qubits. IonQ operates in a highly competitive environment, with several notable players in the quantum computing space, with IBM being a pioneer in quantum computing, offering its IBM Quantum Experience platform that allows users to experiment with quantum algorithms, the company's focus on superconducting qubits and extensive research initiatives making it a formidable competitor. Its closest direct rivals, Rigetti and D-Wave, are considerably behind in revenue and cash (each had ~$500–$600M cash mid-2025 after their stock spikes and fundraising, roughly one-third of IonQ's resources), though Rigetti could become a formidable competitor in a few years if it meets its roadmap (Rigetti aims for 1,000+ qubits with high fidelity by 2026–27).
D-Wave occupies a unique niche with quantum annealing—a different approach optimized for specific optimization problems rather than general-purpose quantum computing. D-Wave Quantum's first-quarter 2025 achievement of quantum computational supremacy on a real-world materials science problem is now published in Science, using its 1,200-qubit Advantage2 prototype to solve a problem in minutes that would take a top-tier classical supercomputer nearly a million years, consuming more energy than the world produces in a year, with this validation separating D-Wave from peers like IonQ and Rigetti Computing, which are yet to demonstrate superiority on commercially relevant tasks, as D-Wave distinguishes itself from competitors like IonQ and Rigetti Computing, which remain focused on less mature gate-based systems with fewer commercial deployments.
Microsoft's strategy differs from everyone else's—they're building an ecosystem rather than just hardware. Azure Quantum provides access to quantum hardware from Microsoft's partners like IonQ, Quantinuum, and Rigetti, giving users multiple options to explore, with Microsoft hedging its bets by integrating multiple quantum technologies into Azure Quantum instead of betting on one approach, making it easier for businesses to experiment with different quantum systems. This platform approach positions Microsoft as the AWS of quantum computing—they win regardless of which hardware approach ultimately succeeds.
The international dimension adds another layer of complexity. China invests billions in quantum research, with companies like Alibaba and Baidu developing their own quantum platforms. European efforts center around academic institutions and startups like Alpine Quantum Technologies. The quantum race has become a matter of national competitiveness, with governments viewing quantum leadership as critical to economic and military superiority.
The December 2024 announcement of an AI-powered calibration challenge with Quantum Machines highlighted another crucial dynamic. As quantum systems become more complex, managing them requires increasingly sophisticated classical computing and AI. The companies that best integrate quantum and classical computing—not just those with the best quantum hardware—may ultimately win.
Market dynamics in 2024 reflect both promise and peril. The Global Quantum Computing Market is projected to reach USD 20.5 Billion by 2033, rising from USD 2.1 Billion in 2024, with a strong CAGR of 25.6% during 2024–2033, with North America leading the global market in 2024, capturing 37.6% of the total share, valued at approximately USD 0.7 Billion, and the United States Quantum Computing Market expected to grow from USD 0.8 Billion in 2025 to around USD 5.5 Billion by 2034, expanding at a CAGR of 23.5%. These projections assume steady technical progress and growing commercial adoption—assumptions that remain unproven.
For Rigetti, competing in this environment requires careful positioning. They can't match IBM's resources or Google's research depth. They lack IonQ's gate fidelity claims or D-Wave's commercial traction in optimization. What Rigetti offers is speed—both in terms of gate operations and development cycles—plus a full-stack approach that gives them control over the entire quantum computing platform. Whether these advantages prove decisive remains the billion-dollar question facing investors and customers alike.
X. Playbook: Lessons for Deep Tech Founders
The Rigetti story offers a masterclass in navigating the treacherous waters of deep tech commercialization. Every decision—from going full-stack to building their own fab to going public via SPAC—carries lessons for founders attempting to commercialize technologies at the edge of human knowledge.
The full-stack versus specialized approach represents the fundamental strategic choice facing deep tech companies. Rigetti chose to build everything: quantum processors, fabrication facilities, control systems, cloud platforms, and software tools. This vertical integration gave them speed and control but required massive capital and diverse expertise. Contrast this with IonQ, which initially outsourced fabrication, or quantum software companies like QC Ware that focus solely on algorithms. The full-stack approach works when integration creates capabilities that modular approaches can't match—but it also multiplies complexity and capital requirements.
The decision to own fabrication deserves special scrutiny. Building Fab-1 cost tens of millions and required specialized expertise that barely existed. Yet it gave Rigetti the ability to iterate on designs in weeks rather than months, a crucial advantage in a field where every design cycle teaches something new. The lesson: own the bottleneck in your innovation cycle. If waiting for external fabrication slows learning, the cost of building internal capabilities may be justified—even if it seems financially insane at the time.
Timing public markets proved catastrophic for Rigetti, but the decision made sense given the information available in 2021. The SPAC boom offered access to capital that might never come again. Quantum computing was hot, competitors were going public, and private fundraising at billion-dollar valuations was becoming difficult. The mistake wasn't going public—it was going public without a clear path to revenue that public market investors could understand. Deep tech companies must choose: stay private until you have commercial traction, accepting dilution and limited capital, or go public early and accept brutal volatility.
Managing investor expectations in decade-long development cycles requires constant education and careful communication. Chad Rigetti's approach—grand visions of quantum supremacy—worked for raising venture capital but proved problematic in public markets. Kulkarni's methodical focus on incremental improvements and concrete milestones better matches public market psychology. The lesson: match your narrative to your investor base. Venture capitalists buy dreams; public investors buy metrics.
The importance of ecosystem building cannot be overstated. Rigetti's early investment in Forest, educational programs, and partnerships with quantum software startups created a community of developers familiar with their platform. This ecosystem becomes a moat—even if competitors develop better hardware, switching costs increase as developers invest in platform-specific knowledge. The parallel to early personal computers is instructive: technical superiority matters less than developer adoption.
Balancing research breakthroughs with commercial milestones represents the central tension in deep tech. Pure research without commercial focus leads to bankruptcy; pure commercial focus without research breakthroughs leads to irrelevance. Rigetti under Chad Rigetti leaned toward research; under Kulkarni, toward commercialization. The ideal balance likely shifts over time—more research-focused in early stages when establishing technical feasibility, more commercially focused as the technology matures.
Leadership transitions in founder-led deep tech companies are particularly fraught. Founders often embody the vision that attracted talent and investment. Their departure can trigger an exodus of key employees and a crisis of confidence. Yet founders who excel at from-zero-to-one innovation may lack the skills for scaling operations and managing public company requirements. The Rigetti transition was handled reasonably well—Kulkarni brought needed operational discipline while maintaining technical ambition. The key is timing: too early and you lose innovative capacity; too late and the company fails before reaching sustainability.
The capital intensity of quantum computing offers lessons for all hardware-intensive deep tech. Rigetti has raised over $650 million and still isn't profitable. This capital requirement creates a catch-22: you need massive funding to develop the technology, but investors want to see progress before providing massive funding. The solution requires staged development with clear milestones, multiple funding sources (venture, government, strategic), and careful cash management. The companies that survive are those that can stretch capital furthest while maintaining technical progress.
The importance of government support in deep tech cannot be ignored. Rigetti's Air Force contracts provide not just revenue but validation and access to problems that matter for national security. For technologies with long development cycles and uncertain commercial applications, government support can bridge the valley of death between research and commercialization. Deep tech founders should invest early in understanding government needs and procurement processes.
The platform versus application debate haunts quantum computing and most deep tech sectors. Should you build the underlying technology platform or focus on specific applications? Rigetti chose platform, believing that owning the full stack would position them to capture value regardless of which applications proved valuable. This makes sense when applications remain uncertain, but it also means you're competing with everyone rather than dominating a niche.
Finally, the Rigetti story illustrates the importance of technical conviction combined with commercial flexibility. The company's bet on superconducting qubits and modular architecture represents strong technical conviction based on deep expertise. But their evolution from pure cloud services to selling QPUs directly shows commercial flexibility, adapting to market realities rather than forcing the market to adapt to their model. Deep tech success requires both: conviction on technical approach, flexibility on business model.
XI. Bear vs. Bull Case
Bear Case:
The financial reality facing Rigetti is stark and unforgiving. Burning $14.8 million per quarter with minimal revenue, the company resembles a rocket consuming fuel without achieving orbit. The path to profitability remains invisible—even optimistic projections don't show positive cash flow before 2027, assuming everything goes perfectly. History suggests things rarely go perfectly in quantum computing.
The technological challenges may prove insurmountable within any reasonable timeframe. Despite decades of research and billions in investment globally, no quantum computer has demonstrated practical advantage for any commercially valuable problem. Error rates remain stubbornly high, coherence times frustratingly short. The physics might simply not cooperate—there's no guarantee that error correction will work at scale or that quantum computers will ever be stable enough for practical use.
Competition from tech giants with essentially unlimited resources poses an existential threat. IBM spends more on quantum research annually than Rigetti's entire market cap. Google has the world's best quantum researchers and unlimited computing resources for simulation. Microsoft's Azure Quantum platform could commoditize quantum computing, reducing hardware providers to low-margin suppliers. How does a company with limited resources compete against opponents that can lose billions without blinking?
The market timing problem compounds every other challenge. Even if quantum computers eventually work, "eventually" might mean 2035 or 2040. Public market investors won't wait that long. The company will need hundreds of millions more in funding before reaching profitability. Each funding round dilutes existing shareholders, and if the stock price remains depressed, that dilution could be catastrophic. Early investors might see their stakes diluted to irrelevance even if the technology eventually succeeds.
The business model remains unproven at any scale. Cloud access to quantum computers generates minimal revenue because quantum computers can't yet solve valuable problems. Selling QPUs to universities provides some revenue but not nearly enough to justify a billion-dollar valuation. The company is essentially betting that applications will emerge that justify the investment—but what if they don't? What if classical computing advances make quantum unnecessary for most problems?
Technical differentiation is eroding as the field matures. Rigetti's gate speeds are impressive, but IonQ claims better fidelity. Their modular architecture is innovative, but IBM and Google are developing similar approaches. The ABAA technique improves manufacturability, but competitors have their own manufacturing innovations. As quantum computing transforms from radical innovation to incremental improvement, Rigetti's advantages may evaporate.
Bull Case:
The technical achievements of 2024 suggest Rigetti has crossed a critical threshold. Achieving 99.5% gate fidelity with the Ankaa-3 system puts them in the same league as Google's latest systems. More importantly, the consistent improvement—from 96% to 98% to 99.5% in just two years—demonstrates that their approach is working. The modular architecture could prove decisive, offering a path to scaling that monolithic approaches can't match.
The strategic positioning for the quantum era is nearly perfect. Unlike pure-play hardware companies, Rigetti owns the entire stack from fabrication to cloud services. Unlike software companies, they control the hardware that determines what's possible. This full-stack approach positions them to capture value wherever it emerges in the quantum ecosystem. They're selling picks and shovels in a gold rush where nobody knows where the gold is.
Government and enterprise adoption is accelerating, albeit from a low base. The Air Force contracts validate Rigetti's technology for national security applications. The Montana State University purchase proves academic institutions will pay for quantum hardware. As quantum computing moves from curiosity to strategic imperative, early commercial relationships could become massive advantages. Today's research partners could become tomorrow's major customers.
The management transition from Rigetti to Kulkarni may prove perfectly timed. The company needed a visionary founder to create something from nothing, but now needs operational excellence to achieve commercial success. Kulkarni's semiconductor background and public company experience are exactly what's required for this phase. His focus on achievable milestones and customer success is already showing results.
The market opportunity, if quantum computing works, is essentially unlimited. McKinsey estimates quantum computing could create $850 billion in value by 2040. Even capturing a small fraction of this market would justify valuations far exceeding Rigetti's current market cap. Drug discovery alone could be worth hundreds of billions—a single quantum-designed drug could generate more revenue than Rigetti's entire current valuation.
First-mover advantages in quantum computing could prove decisive. The companies that establish ecosystems, train developers, and build customer relationships now will dominate when quantum advantage arrives. Rigetti's Forest platform, cloud services, and educational programs are building exactly these advantages. When quantum computing becomes practical, customers will turn to familiar platforms rather than starting fresh with new vendors.
The technology risk, while real, may be overstated. The question isn't whether quantum computers will work—they already work for certain problems. The question is when they'll work for commercially valuable problems. With major breakthroughs in error correction, gate fidelity, and scaling happening regularly, the timeline appears to be accelerating. Rigetti doesn't need to solve every problem—just one or two valuable ones.
The current valuation prices in almost complete failure. With a market cap under $2 billion (and often much lower), the market is essentially betting that Rigetti will fail. Any success—a major customer win, a technical breakthrough, a demonstration of quantum advantage—could trigger massive revaluation. The asymmetry is compelling: limited downside (the company is already priced for failure) with potentially massive upside.
XII. Epilogue: The Quantum Future
As 2024 draws to a close, Rigetti Computing stands at an inflection point that will determine not just its own fate, but potentially the trajectory of quantum computing itself. The company that began in a Berkeley garage with a physicist's dream has evolved into a public corporation with real customers, improving technology, and a plausible path to commercial relevance.
The progress is undeniable. From three qubits in 2016 to 84 qubits with 99.5% gate fidelity in 2024. From a jury-rigged lab to a dedicated fabrication facility. From theoretical papers to quantum processors installed at universities. From a founder's vision to a management team executing on concrete milestones. Each achievement moves quantum computing incrementally closer to practical reality.
Yet the challenges remain monumental. Error rates, while improving, still prevent lengthy computations. Coherence times, measured in microseconds, limit algorithm complexity. The quantum advantage that would justify billions in investment remains frustratingly out of reach. Every breakthrough reveals new challenges, every solution creates new problems. The summit keeps receding even as climbers ascend.
The next five years will likely determine Rigetti's fate. The roadmap is ambitious but achievable: 36-qubit modular systems in 2025, demonstrating that multiple chips can work together. The 336-qubit Lyra system to follow, pushing toward the scale needed for practical applications. Error correction improving from experimental demonstration to practical implementation. Gate fidelities approaching the theoretical limits of superconducting qubits.
Success requires threading an impossibly narrow needle. Technical breakthroughs must continue at pace—any significant delay could prove fatal given the company's burn rate. Customers must begin seeing real value from quantum computing, moving beyond research to practical applications. Funding must remain available, whether through revenue growth, strategic partnerships, or additional capital raises. Competition must not achieve breakthrough advantages that obsolete Rigetti's approach.
The broader implications extend far beyond one company's success or failure. If Rigetti and its competitors succeed in building practical quantum computers, the impact on humanity could rival the invention of the transistor or the internet. Drug discovery could accelerate by orders of magnitude, potentially curing diseases that have plagued humanity for millennia. Materials science could create substances with properties we can barely imagine—room-temperature superconductors, ultra-efficient solar cells, catalysts that pull carbon from the atmosphere. Artificial intelligence could leap forward, with quantum machine learning solving problems beyond current comprehension.
But if quantum computing proves impractical—if error correction never works at scale, if coherence times can't be extended, if the physics simply doesn't cooperate—then hundreds of billions in investment will have been wasted. Thousands of brilliant physicists and engineers will have spent decades pursuing a mirage. The opportunity cost—what else could have been achieved with those resources and talent—would be staggering.
The investment implications are equally profound. For believers in quantum computing, current valuations might represent the opportunity of a lifetime—buying into the next computing revolution at ground-floor prices. For skeptics, it's a bubble built on hype and hope, destined to collapse when reality intrudes. The truth likely lies somewhere between: quantum computing will work but take longer and cost more than optimists expect, creating fortunes for some investors while destroying capital for others.
The biggest surprises from Rigetti's journey might be what seemed impossible that became routine. Building a quantum computer in a startup environment. Accessing quantum processors through the cloud. Achieving gate fidelities that theorists thought impossible a decade ago. Each breakthrough redefined what was possible, pushing the boundaries of human knowledge and engineering capability.
The lessons extend beyond quantum computing to all transformative technologies. The importance of patient capital in funding long-term research. The delicate balance between vision and execution. The crucial role of government support in bridging the valley of death. The challenge of maintaining stakeholder confidence during decade-long development cycles. The necessity of ecosystem building in emerging technologies.
Looking ahead, several scenarios seem plausible. The optimistic case sees quantum advantage demonstrated by 2026, triggering massive investment and rapid commercialization. Rigetti's early positioning and full-stack approach position it as a major player in a trillion-dollar industry. The company becomes the NVIDIA of quantum computing, providing essential infrastructure for a new computing paradigm.
The pessimistic case sees continued technical challenges, burning cash while competitors pull ahead. Unable to raise additional capital at reasonable valuations, the company is acquired for its IP and talent, becoming a footnote in quantum computing history. The technology eventually works, but Rigetti doesn't survive to see it.
The most likely case lies between extremes. Quantum computing gradually demonstrates value for specific applications—drug discovery, materials science, cryptography. Progress is slower than hoped but faster than feared. Rigetti survives through careful cash management, strategic partnerships, and incremental technical progress. The company never achieves the spectacular returns early investors hoped for, but builds a sustainable business in a slowly emerging industry.
As we stand at this quantum crossroads, one thing is certain: the attempt itself has value. Even if Rigetti fails, even if quantum computing takes decades longer than expected, the knowledge gained, the techniques developed, the talent trained—all push humanity forward. The scientists and engineers working on quantum computing today are expanding the boundaries of human knowledge, regardless of commercial outcomes.
The quest for quantum supremacy is ultimately a bet on human ingenuity—a belief that the laws of physics can be harnessed to solve problems that seem impossible today. Whether Rigetti Computing succeeds or fails, whether quantum computers transform civilization or remain laboratory curiosities, the attempt itself represents humanity at its best: ambitious, persistent, willing to risk failure in pursuit of transformative success.
The quantum future remains unwritten, its possibilities limited only by the laws of physics and human imagination. Rigetti Computing, for all its challenges and uncertainties, remains a player in this unfolding drama—a company that dared to build quantum computers when everyone said it was impossible, that continues to push forward despite brutal market conditions and technical challenges that would break lesser organizations. The next chapter in this quantum story is about to begin.
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