Riverlane and Rigetti Demonstrate Fast Live Error Decoding
An eight-qubit experiment reports mean decoding below one microsecond per round, with complete feedback measured separately.
Rigetti founder and former CEO Chad Rigetti in 2018, used as company context for the Rigetti–Riverlane work. Image credit“TechCrunch Disrupt 2018 — Day 3 — 023” by Steve Jennings / Getty Images for TechCrunch, CC BY 2.0. · https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
Riverlane and Rigetti researchers have demonstrated real-time error decoding in an eight- stability experiment on Rigetti's Ankaa-2, published in Nature Communications. Decoding has to keep pace with incoming measurements; otherwise, an system can accumulate a backlog while the quantum hardware keeps running.
The experiment reaches 25 decoding rounds with mean decoding below one microsecond per round. A separate nine-round feedback path takes 9.6 microseconds, including communication and control.
The sub-microsecond number is an average, not a worst-case bound or the time for the complete feedback loop. It comes from a small experiment. Its relevance to larger codes depends on sustained throughput, the spread of decoding latencies and the performance of that full control loop.