D-Wave’s Advantage2 annealing quantum processing unit (QPU). This world-class QPU delivers significant performance gains over the previous D-Wave Advantage system with doubled coherence time, enabling faster time to solution, and a 40% increase in energy scale, driving better quality solutions.
D-Wave Quantum Inc. (D-Wave) is the first company to commercialize quantum computing, with systems that are now capable of addressing use cases in areas such as optimization, materials simulation and artificial intelligence. Annealing quantum computing’s value is evident as researchers, businesses and governments look to harness its energy-efficient processing power for a wide range of applications. For more than 25 years, D-Wave has had a clear mission: to harness the incredible power of quantum technology and use it to solve our most challenging problems.
A focus on commercialization
When the company was founded in 1999, D-Wave took an agnostic approach to assess the relative merits and downsides of different physical platforms (for example, ion traps, superconductors and photonics) and quantum computing models (for example, gate, quantum annealing and topological). The company used criteria such as sensitivity to errors and noise, practicality to scale in reasonable time frames, and applicability to real-world problems. This assessment was intended to ensure that the company had objective and comprehensive knowledge of how to build scalable quantum computers.
Based on this extensive analysis, D-Wave made a few highly strategic decisions that would significantly impact the development and commercialization of quantum computing.
It was evident that annealing quantum computing would be more robust against errors and noise and have simpler engineering requirements than gate-model approaches. Further, it is naturally suited to solving complex, high-value optimization problems, which are ubiquitous. D-Wave believed that dramatically improving optimization would be impactful enough to build a thriving business.
D-Wave also recognized that developing large-scale quantum computing technology would require building superconducting devices in production semiconductor fabrication facilities rather than research labs. The basic components of superconducting integrated circuits that support quantum computation, such as Josephson junctions, have existed for decades. These components were developed in research and academic labs, which limited the ability to scale. Making use of production-scale semiconductor facilities leverages decades of research and development and hundreds of billions of dollars invested by the semiconductor industry. This strategy enabled annealing quantum computing to be brought to market quickly and at scale rather than having to invent new manufacturing techniques from scratch.
Inspired by ambitious technology development programmes like the Manhattan Project, D-Wave built a highly collaborative, inter-disciplinary team of people with the scientific, engineering and product development skills needed to build scalable quantum computers. The company culture was designed to emphasize inspiration, creativity and focus on a shared goal of building commercial quantum computing technology to tackle some of humanity’s most pressing challenges. Many other companies within the quantum computing industry were founded by academics, bringing little to no experience to developing and launching technology at scale, and are struggling to commercialize.
The quantum annealing advantage
The D-Wave Advantage2 quantum computer. As D-Wave’s sixth-generation annealing quantum computer, the Advantage2 system is production-ready and built to address use cases in areas such as optimization, materials simulation, and artificial intelligence (AI).
D-Wave annealing quantum computers are powerful systems that leverage quantum mechanics to efficiently solve complex problems. Numerous peer-reviewed papers indicate that quantum effects are at play in D-Wave annealing systems including quantum tunnelling1 and entanglement between qubits2.
Research has shown that annealing quantum computing offers fundamental advantages over classical methods. In 2025, D-Wave published research validating its achievement of the world’s first and only demonstration of quantum computational supremacy on a useful, real-world problem3. The research indicated that D-Wave’s annealing quantum computer performed a magnetic materials simulation in minutes that would have taken nearly one million years and more than the world’s annual electricity consumption to solve using a classical supercomputer built with graphics processing unit (GPU) clusters. This reflects a game-changing moment in computing.
Recent empirical and theoretical work suggests that gate-model quantum computing, even if realized at scale, will not be competitive with D-Wave annealing quantum computers for optimization problems4. Los Alamos National Laboratory research projected that the fundamental performance of a perfect error-free gate-model system on optimization problems is orders of magnitude slower than the currently available D-Wave Advantage processors.
Annealing quantum computing’s relevance to optimization problems and its first-mover advantage as a commercially viable technology have given it long-lasting value to businesses, researchers and governments. D-Wave’s initial observations from 20 years ago ring true. The company’s annealing quantum computers are commercial today and rival state-of-the-art classical computing systems in solving real-world problems. Proven, existing fabrication processes have accelerated scaling of the technology. A culture that thoughtfully blends science, engineering and product development has resulted in the delivery of six generations of quantum computers, now capable of outperforming classical computers and delivering customer value.
Author
Eric Ladizinsky, Co-Founder, Chief Scientist and Fellow, D-Wave
Address
D-Wave Quantum Inc.
2650 E Bayshore Rd, Palo Alto, CA 94303