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D-Wave Quantum’s latest quantum computing system has hit the market, the company said Tuesday. Shares popped more than 18%.
The quantum computer, known as Advantage2, marks its sixth iteration and most advance system, the company said.
“It’s an engineering marvel, with substantial technical advancements that highlight D-Wave’s progress in scaling quantum technology to meet industry demands for growing computational processing power while maintaining energy efficiency,” said CEO Alan Baratz in a press release.
D-Wave said the computer, accessible through its cloud service, offers a 40% boost in energy scale, and reduces noise by 75%. Advantage2 also uses an updated system with 20-way connectivity that can use fewer qubits to solve problems. A qubit, or quantum bit, refers to a unit used to encode data in quantum computers.
Recent quantum announcements from major technology giants have boosted optimism in the sector that promises to solve intricate computing tasks unachievable by regular computers. Google debuted its latest quantum computing chip known as “Willow” in December, while Microsoft launched its first quantum chip earlier this year.
But some quantum experts and techn CEOs have cast doubt on how soon quantum applications can hit the market. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in January said that 15 years was on the “early side” for “very useful” quantum computers, sending quantum stocks spiraling. Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg also tempered expectations on the sector.
Huang later walked back those comments at a company event in March, with D-Wave’s Baratz and other quantum executives in attendance. Baratz told CNBC shortly after the initial comments that Huang was “dead wrong” about quantum computing.
Other quantum computing stocks jumped on the news with Quantum Computing and Rigetti Computing last up more than 10% and 5%, respectively. IonQ added 3%.
