Rigetti Computing partners with Germany’s PlankQK to provide QPU access and enable quantum research and application development

(HPCWire) Rigetti Computing, a pioneer in full-stack quantum computing, today announced its partnership with PlanQK (Platform and Ecosystem for Quantum-Assisted Artificial Intelligence), a German consortium that joins end users with quantum hardware to advance quantum computing research and identify real-world artificial intelligence use cases.
PlanQK members will have access to Rigetti’s latest quantum processors to develop and test a variety of industrial use cases for quantum computing. PlanQK consortium members D-Fine, Deutsche Bahn, QAR-Lab of Ludwig Maximilian University Munich (LMU), University of Stuttgart and StoneOne AG will collaborate with Rigetti to evaluate the optimal use of Rigetti hardware, with a focus on quantum machine learning and optimization applications. By joining hardware and use case expertise, and a large network of end users across industries, Rigetti and PlanQK plan for this partnership to strengthen the quantum computing ecosystem and accelerate application development.
Andreas Liebing, CEO StoneOne AG and consortium lead PlanQK says, “We are very excited to have Rigetti join us as a hardware partner for the PlanQK platform. We have had insightful discussions during the setup phase; both on a use case as well as a platform integration level and are now looking forward to taking the next step in enabling the quantum ecosystem together with Rigetti.”
Prof. Frank Leymann, scientific director of PlanQK, adds, “One of the goals of PlanQK is to strengthen the application competence of industry in the field of quantum computing. This naturally includes the use of as many different quantum computers as possible. Therefore, I am pleased that PlanQK partners can now use Rigetti’s platform.”
“Our partnership with PlanQK is an exciting opportunity to expand access to our latest generation of quantum processors, and to drive the industry towards commercialization with critical use case development. With the industry expertise of our PlankQK collaborators we’ll be able continue developing our hardware to create functionality that’s applicable to a broad user base,” says Mandy Birch, Rigetti SVP, Partnerships.