Quantum News Nexus

D-Wave Systems, a provider of quantum annealing systems that has been working for years to add gate-model quantum computing to its repertoire, just announced the $550 million acquisition of Quantum Circuits, Inc., a deal that should accelerate D-Wave’s pursuit of quantum computers based on superconducting architectures.

D-Wave claims to be the only company with a “dual platform” approach to quantum computing, but thus far has been more focused on quantum annealers targeted at optimization problems. It has said for years that it was developing gate-model capabilities, though at times has been shy about discussing its plans in detail. That has changed in the last year or so, with the company more openly talking about its progress during customer and analyst events. The acquisition of Quantum Circuits, a highly regarded Yale University spin-off, marks a major turning point in D-Wave’s strategy to offer commercially viable superconducting quantum computers.

D-Wave CEO Alan Baratz said on a conference call this morning that the deal brings together his company’s work with on-chip cryogenic control capabilities (a demonstration of which it touted just this week) and Quantum Circuits’ advancements in dual-rail qubit technology with built-in error correction, a combination that “we believe is going to allow us to bring a scaled error-corrected superconducting gate-model quantum computer to market ahead of anybody else.”

While IBM and others already have working superconducting systems, they are extremely expensive, and error correction remains a work in progress, with IBM, for example, targeting 2029 for the debut of its error-corrected Starling system. This acquisition firmly places D-Wave in the race to debut a fault-tolerant superconducting system that can be more easily scaled and more widely deployed.

“Error correction of gate-model quantum systems is one of the most important challenges and next steps in bringing commercial quantum computing systems to market,” Baratz said, adding, “[Quantum computing] is not just about annealing. We all know that there are problems that are very well suited to annealing, less well-suited to gate, but there are critically important problems that are extremely well-suited to gate model, quantum computers, for example, in the area of quantum chemistry and fluid dynamics that annealing systems are not as good at solving.”

Baratz said that Quantum Circuits will be fully integrated into D-Wave, but that the company’s home base in New Haven, Connecticut, near Yale, will effectively be “the center” of D-Wave’s ongoing work on gate-model superconducting systems, and that teams from both companies “will start working to identify the synergies” between D-Wave’s past gate-model developments and those of Quantum Circuits.

The $550 million purchase, which is expected to close later this month, consists of $300 million in D-Wave common stock and $250 million in cash. D-Wave’s stock price (NYSE: QBTS) hit $31.95 this morning, up a little more than 2% on the day. It had reached as high as $44.78 during last fall’s quantum stock rally, and though it later receded, it has increased by about 12% over the last month.

This story will be updated with more comments from D-Wave’s conference call.

Quantum News Nexus is a site from freelance writer and editor Dan O’Shea that covers quantum computing, quantum sensing, quantum networking, quantum-safe security, and more. You can find him on X @QuantumNewsGuy and doshea14@gmail.com.