California-based quantum circuitry company Rigetti has brought a commercially available quantum computer to the UK. Only the second in the country, it was installed in collaboration with Oxford Instruments NanoScience — a cryogenics company that provides the cooling needed for superconducting qubits. The system, supported by grants from the UK government, is Rigetti’s first UK-based quantum computer and will be accessible via the company’s cloud computing services. When it comes to quantum computing, you need the actual circuitry hardware that hosts the qubits, advanced cryogenics systems, software to run error-correcting quantum algorithms, and specialised programming languages. And the means to…
