Rigetti Computing, Inc. Q1 FY2025 earnings call

• Selected for DARPA's Quantum Benchmarking Initiative Stage A, collaborating with Riverlane on utility-scale quantum computer concept.
• Awarded $5.48 million AFOSR Award consortium to develop Alternating-Bias Assisted Annealing (ABAA) chip fabrication technology.
• Awarded three Innovate UK Quantum Mission Pilot Awards, including upgrading existing quantum computer at NQCC.
• Two additional Quantum Missions pilot projects: integrating SEEQC's tech and creating open-architecture quantum computing test bed.
• Joint paper on coherent control of superconducting qubit published in Nature Physics.
• Used quantum preconditioning to address power grid problem with 84-qubit system.
• Closed investment by Quanta Computer, Inc., with $35 million purchase of Rigetti common stock.

Revenues in the first quarter of 2025 were $1.5 million compared to $3.1 million in the first quarter of 2024. Gross margins in Q1 2025 were 30% vs. 49% in Q1 2024. Total OpEx in Q1 2025 was $22.1 million vs. $18.1 million in the prior year. Operating loss for Q1 2025 was $21.6 million vs. $16.6 million in the prior year period. Net income for Q1 2025 was $42.6 million compared to a net loss of $20.8 million in the prior year. As of April 30, 2025, cash, cash equivalents and available for sale investments totaled $237.7 million.

• Expecting to deploy 4x9 qubit chiplets mid-year, aiming for over 100 qubits by end of 2025 with high fidelity.
• NQI Reauthorization Act still pending, funding expected to take a few months to flow after passage.
• Quanta partnership to invest $250 million over 5 years in non-QPU hardware, helping refocus R&D on QPU core.

• Uncertainty around passage and timing of NQI Reauthorization Act affecting funding and revenue.
• Dependence on government contracts and grants, subject to political and budgetary uncertainties.
• Technical challenges in scaling qubit counts and achieving high fidelity levels as planned.

Q: In the past, you highlighted that chip tiling is expected to get Rigetti to 36 qubits at midyear and over 100 by the end of '25 at fidelity rates of 99.75%. I'm curious, we're just a month and a half away from midyear, can you speak to the progress you're making on tiling? And do you think that these time frames are still reasonable?

A: Sure. Thanks, Brian, for your question. Indeed, deploying chiplets is a very critical part of our strategy because we believe that's the a real good way to scale up a number of qubits as we go forward using monolithic dye that we have used in the past along with many of our peers' works obviously, and we have systems that are deployed that are doing well, but we see a significant challenge in squeezing more qubits on a single monolithic dye, which is why we deployed the chiplet approach. In the past, we have deployed two chiplets in a system and then last year, we announced that we have done that with two 9-qubit chiplets at a much higher Fidelity level. We feel pretty confident that the chiplet approach with the four 9-qubit chiplets sometime middle of this year and taking it over 100 qubits by the end of this year is going to work. All the data looks promising. We feel optimistic that we should be able to disclose our results as time goes on. I don't have anything specific to report. I mean, as we have said in the past, our two attempts with two chiplets have worked. All the fundamental data suggest that our attempts at four and eventually multiple chiplets is going to work. This is not just important for Rigetti, but it's frankly important for the whole industry because this is the only way we see how you scale up the qubit counts. Some other companies in superconducting have tried to do larger monolithic chips and they haven't worked quite well. And frankly, the other modalities are significantly behind the superconducting modality in terms of qubit count. So we really don't see them coming to hundreds and thousands of qubits. So we really believe that chiplets is the right way to scale up superconducting qubits and show a path towards the fault-tolerant quantum computing systems. Hope that answers your question, Brian.

Q: For sure, absolutely. I have one follow up and then I'll get back in the queue. I know there were some hearings recently regarding the NQI Reauthorization Act. I'm curious what you're hearing in regards to the new funding bill and how you think about when it might get approved or what you're hearing?

A: Yeah, certainly, the NQI Reauthorization Act seems to have bipartisan support in our government, and there are multiple versions of the bill that have been floated both in the House and Senate. As of today, it hasn't passed yet. And even after it passes, there is always a time for the money to be appropriated. So we are talking at least a couple of months from now before we actually start seeing money flow out of the NQI Reauthorization Bill. Many of us, we for sure, but many quantum computing companies are eagerly awaiting for the NQI Reauthorization to pass. We are pretty optimistic based on [Technical Difficulty] fairly soon.

Q: Great. Thanks so much for taking my question. In the past, you highlighted that chip tiling is expected to get Rigetti to 36 qubits at midyear and over 100 by the end of '25 at fidelity rates of 99.75%. I'm curious, we're just a month and a half away from midyear, can you speak to the progress you're making on tiling? And do you think that these time frames are still reasonable?

A: Sure. Thanks, Brian, for your question. Indeed, deploying chiplets is a very critical part of our strategy because we believe that's the a real good way to scale up a number of qubits as we go forward using monolithic dye that we have used in the past along with many of our peers' works obviously, and we have systems that are deployed that are doing well, but we see a significant challenge in squeezing more qubits on a single monolithic dye, which is why we deployed the chiplet approach. In the past, we have deployed two chiplets in a system and then last year, we announced that we have done that with two 9-qubit chiplets at a much higher Fidelity level. We feel pretty confident that the chiplet approach with the four 9-qubit chiplets sometime middle of this year and taking it over 100 qubits by the end of this year is going to work. All the data looks promising. We feel optimistic that we should be able to disclose our results as time goes on. I don't have anything specific to report. I mean, as we have said in the past, our two attempts with two chiplets have worked. All the fundamental data suggest that our attempts at four and eventually multiple chiplets is going to work. This is not just important for Rigetti, but it's frankly important for the whole industry because this is the only way we see how you scale up the qubit counts. Some other companies in superconducting have tried to do larger monolithic chips and they haven't worked quite well. And frankly, the other modalities are significantly behind the superconducting modality in terms of qubit count. So we really believe that chiplets is the right way to scale up superconducting qubits and show a path towards the fault-tolerant quantum computing systems. Hope that answers your question, Brian.

Q: For sure, absolutely. I have one follow up and then I'll get back in the queue. I know there were some hearings recently regarding the NQI Reauthorization Act. I'm curious what you're hearing in regards to the new funding bill and how you think about when it might get approved or what you're hearing?

A: Yeah, certainly, the NQI Reauthorization Act seems to have bipartisan support in our government, and there are multiple versions of the bill that have been floated both in the House and Senate. As of today, it hasn't passed yet. And even after it passes, there is always a time for the money to be appropriated. So we are talking at least a couple of months from now before we actually start seeing money flow out of the NQI Reauthorization Bill. Many of us, we for sure, but many quantum computing companies are eagerly awaiting for the NQI Reauthorization to pass. We are pretty optimistic based on [Technical Difficulty] fairly soon.