Rigetti Lands Air Force Award and IonQ to Partner With Department of Energy. Quantum Stocks Jump.

Rigetti Computing said it would partner with a Dutch start-up under a three-year, $5.8 million contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory. (Drew Bird Photography / Rigetti Computing)

Rigetti Computing announced Thursday it was awarded a three-year, $5.8 million contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory to advance quantum networking technology.

Barron’s was the first to rep o rt last month that Rigetti had been granted an Air Force contract titled “Hybrid Superconducting-Optical Quantum Network Nodes,” though details were sparse at the time.

As part of the award, Rigetti will collaborate with QphoX, a Dutch start-up, to find ways to combine their respective technologies to transmit information between quantum computers.

“It’s a far-out kind of research program. It’s very much in the R&D phase,” Rigetti CEO Subodh Kulkarni explained in an interview with Barron’s.

Networking also provides a way to create larger, more complex systems without encountering the issues associated with adding quantum bits to a computer. Beyond the obvious national security applications including the secure transmission of information, Kulkarni believes quantum networking has applications in the commercial realm.

“We’re talking about the ability to transfer information from one computer to another in the quantum state,” Kulkarni said. “It’s a necessary component, long-term, to making sure quantum computers get been integrated into the fabric of data centers.” This could happen over the next five to 10 years, he added.

Rigetti has two other contracts with the Air Force, and was among the companies selected earlier this year to participate in a federal program assessing the longer-term prospects of quantum computing. Kulkarni is “cautiously optimistic” that Rigetti will advance to the next stage of that project.

Rigetti wasn’t the only quantum computing company that landed a federal deal. IonQ said after markets closed Wednesday that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Department of Energy to advance the deployment of quantum technologies in space.

The announcement came on the heels of IonQ’s confirmation that it had acquired Oxford Ionics and entered into an agreement to acquire Vector Atomic, in two separate transactions valued at a collective $1.3 billion.

IonQ CEO Niccolo de Masi told Barron’s that the acquisitions broadened IonQ’s capabilities across the fields of quantum computing, sensing, and networking.

Along with a string of acquisitions completed earlier this year, the latest additions “make IonQ the most comprehensive quantum platform — on the ground, across the seas, in the air, and in space,” de Masi asserted.

Rigetti Computing stock spiked 14% to $25.13 on Thursday, putting it on track for an all-time high, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

IonQ climbed 6.9% while peers D-Wave Quantum and Quantum Computing also got a boost, rising 4% and 3.3%, respectively.

Write to Mackenzie Tatananni at mackenzie.tatananni@barrons.com