D-Wave Systems

D-Wave, a manufacturer of quantum annealers, is the world’s first commercial supplier of quantum computers, as well as a frontrunner in quantum annealing technology. The company unveiled plans to build a gate-model system in October 2021, making it the first and only quantum computing company to offer both annealing and gate-model systems. However, the company has not revealed much about its progress on the gate-based systems yet. 

D-Wave introduced the world’s first commercially available 128-qubit quantum computer using annealing technology in 2011. Over the years, the company has focused on increasing the qubits, with its latest annealer system comprising 5,000 qubits. It also announced plans to launch a 7,000-qubit annealer by 2023–2024. D-Wave claims its quantum annealers can be used for accelerating and enabling new methods for solving complex optimization problems, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and simulation problems. 

The company’s main competitive advantage comes from being the only player that offers commercially available annealing quantum computer systems, which can be installed on premises. However, D-Wave has yet to demonstrate the advantages of its annealing technology over classical computers despite being in operation for more than 20 years. 

Key customers and partnerships

The company operates its own quantum cloud service to build and deploy quantum computing applications, also offering access to its hardware via cloud solutions from other companies like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and 1Qbit. Its quantum annealers are in commercial use by companies such as Volkswagen and Lockheed Martin. It also offered free cloud access to its quantum computers in 2020 to anyone working on tackling the Covid-19 crisis. 

The company partnered with NEC Australia and the Australian Department of Defence for quantum optimization in April 2021 and teamed up with Mastercard in July 2022 to develop quantum-assisted finance solutions. 

Funding and financials

D-Wave went public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in August 2022 via a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger.