Rigetti wins £3.5M Innovate UK Quantum Missions pilot to advance real-time error correction and upgrade NQCC system to 36 qubits
On 2025-04-22 Rigetti announced its UK consortium was selected as a winner of Innovate UK's Quantum Missions pilot competition, receiving approximately £3.5 million to benchmark and enhance quantum error correction on superconducting hardware. Partners include Riverlane and the National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) superconducting team. The project plans to upgrade Rigetti's NQCC-deployed system from 24 to 36 qubits and target real-time QEC. Rigetti separately disclosed participation in two additional Quantum Missions projects (with SEEQC, and with TreQ/Qruise/Q-CTRL/Oxford Ionics).
A government-backed award funding a concrete 24->36 qubit hardware upgrade and real-time error-correction benchmarking is a meaningful, regulator-counterparty signal for Rigetti's superconducting roadmap toward fault tolerance.
Anchoring Rigetti deeper into the UK national quantum program (NQCC/Riverlane) strengthens its non-US public-funding pipeline and positions it for follow-on UK procurement.