D-Wave to Accelerate Development of Quantum Applications as US Policy Shifts Toward Short-Term Quantum Technologies

Insider Summary:

• Recent legislation before Congress calls on the US government to develop and adopt short-term quantum computing applications that can provide solutions to complex public sector optimization problems, including power grid resilience, port optimization, global supply chain issues, management and response emergencies, infrastructure, and telecommunications networks.
• D-Wave has the technology needed to develop these applications today.
• Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave, said the country is at a unique inflection point for US quantum policy and to date, the US National Quantum Strategy has not prioritized app development, but legislation before Congress has changed that mindset. He believes his company is ready to collaborate with the US government to build short-term quantum applications to help meet the public sector’s current and future needs.

PRESS RELEASE — BURNABY, British Columbia and PALO ALTO, California, June 27, 2023 — Recent legislation before Congress required the US government to develop and adopt short-term quantum computing applications that could provide solutions to complex public sector optimization problems, including grid resilience, port optimization, global supply chain issues, emergency management and response, infrastructure, and telecommunications networks. D-Wave Quantum Inc.leaders in quantum computing systems, software, and services, have the technology needed to develop these applications today.

Last week, The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) And FY24 Energy and Water Allocation a bill in the House of Representatives second continued policy covering the development of short-term quantum applications. This represents an important shift in the US government’s mindset on quantum, which until recently was focused on the long-term quantum gate model. The NDAA Bills and Appropriations explicitly call for US policies covering all viable quantum computing systems, including quantum annealing, gate models, and quantum hybrid technologies (quantum plus classical computing applications). The law also includes an aggressive time frame of 24 months or less to develop and implement demos, proof-of-concepts, and pilots.

“This country is at a unique inflection point for US quantum policy,” said Dr. Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave. “To date, the US National Quantum Strategy has not prioritized app development, but legislation before Congress has changed that mindset. D-Wave is ready to collaborate with the US government to build short-term quantum applications to help meet the current and future needs of the public sector.”

Quantum annealing technology is uniquely suited to solving optimization problems and is the technology available now to help build these applications. D-Wave already provides solutions for a broad portfolio of commercial and government customers in areas such as logistics, artificial intelligence, materials science, drug discovery, scheduling, fault detection and financial modeling. For example, D-Wave and its customers have created applications and demos for remote delivery during emergency response for the Australian Army and optimizing tsunami evacuation routes In Japan.

Additional legislation recently introduced in the Senate calls for the development of quantum and quantum hybrid via Quantum sandbox bill. In the Republic of Indonesia Parliament, Wildfire Tech DEMO Act calls for applying quantum technology to fire response, meanwhile Quantum Practices Act seeks to use quantum technology for modeling and simulation.

If this bill is enacted, the US will move closer to other global leaders such as the UK, Australia, Germany, Japan and Canada, which have invested heavily in quantum and are implementing a strong government quantum strategy. In addition, some of these countries are actively supporting quantum commercialization as well as workforce development efforts calling for the inclusion of quantum annealing and quantum hybrid applications in their programmes.

This US legislative effort comes at a time global government investment in the development of quantum applications is increasing and is expected to reach $36 billion by 2023. The National Quantum Initiative Act (NQI), which was enacted in December 2018 to accelerate America’s lead in quantum information technology, is scheduled to be re-enacted this year.

About D-Wave Quantum Inc.

D-Wave (NYSE: QBTS) is a leader in the development and delivery of quantum computing systems, software, and services, and is the world’s first supplier of commercial quantum computers — and the only company to build annealed quantum computers and gated model quantum computers. Our mission is to unlock the power of today’s quantum computing to benefit business and society. We do this by providing customer value with practical quantum applications to problems such as logistics, artificial intelligence, materials science, drug discovery, scheduling, cybersecurity, fault detection and financial modeling. D-Wave technology is used by some of the world’s most advanced organizations, including Volkswagen, Mastercard, Deloitte, Davidson Technologies, ArcelorMittal, Siemens Healthineers, Unisys, NEC Corporation, Pattison Food Group Ltd., DENSO, Lockheed Martin, Forschungszentrum Jülich, University of Southern California, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.