Prototype of Next-Generation Advantage2 Annealing Quantum Computer

D-Wave Systems Inc. (“D-Wave”), a leader in quantum computing systems, software, and services, and the only company building both quantum annealing and gate-based quantum computers, today announced that it is showcasing an experimental prototype of the next-generation Advantage2™ annealing quantum computer in the Leap™ quantum cloud service. The quantum prototype is available for use today.

The Advantage2 prototype has 500+ qubits, woven together in the new Zephyr topology with 20-way inter-qubit connectivity and enabled by an innovative new qubit design. The Advantage2 prototype represents a version of the upcoming full-scale product with all core functionality available for testing. In early benchmarks, the reduced scale system demonstrates more compact embeddings; an increased energy scale, lowering error rates; and improved solution quality and increased probability of finding optimal solutions. By making the Advantage2 prototype available in the Leap quantum cloud service today, the company is providing an early snapshot for exploration and learning by developers and researchers.

Announced six months ago as part of the Clarity roadmap, and scheduled to be available in 2023-2024, the full Advantage2 system will mark the company’s sixth-generation quantum system. It is expected to feature 7,000 qubits with a new qubit design, enabling 20-way connectivity between qubits in a new topology. In addition, a new, low-noise multi-layer superconducting integrated-circuit fabrication process will provide greater qubit coherence for increased performance. Early testing on quantum processing unit (QPU) chips fabricated with the new low-noise process highlights a significant reduction in qubit noise.

“We’ve been building annealing quantum computers for more than 15 years. In those years, we’ve been able to create a scalable manufacturing and product development cycle. With Advantage2, those learnings have accelerated our ability to bring innovations in fabrication processes and materials, and hardware and software more quickly into our development cycle,” said Emile Hoskinson, Director, Quantum Annealing Products, D-Wave. “The Advantage2 prototype is designed to share what we’re learning and gain feedback from the community as we continue to build towards the full Advantage2 system. Our current Advantage quantum computer was completely re-engineered from the ground up. With Advantage2, we’re pushing that envelope again – demonstrating that connectivity and reduction in noise can be a delivery vehicle for even greater performance once the full system is available. The Advantage2 prototype is an opportunity for us to share our excitement and give a sneak peek into the future for customers bringing quantum into their applications.”

Developers can sign up for the Leap quantum cloud service and get up to one minute of free use of the actual quantum processing units (QPUs) and quantum hybrid solvers. Developers who open source their code receive an additional minute of free solver access per month in subsequent months. Customers who have Leap subscriptions get the full value of the Leap quantum cloud service, including access to the new Advantage2 prototype.

In addition to showcasing the Advantage2 prototype, the Leap quantum cloud service includes the industry’s most powerful quantum computer built for business: the 5000+ qubit, 15-way connectivity Advantage™ performance update, released in October 2021. Leap also includes quantum hybrid solvers, like the new Constrained Quadratic Model (CQM) solver, the industry’s first-ever solver that can leverage the power of quantum computation to run constrained quadratic optimization problems with both integer and continuous variables. The cloud service also incorporates an updated integrated developer environment (IDE), integration into the Python-based Ocean™ open-source developer tools, demos, sample code and examples, and a growing community of quantum developers, all built to run in-production quantum hybrid applications.

Enterprises that are ready to get started building in-production quantum hybrid applications can sign up for the D-Wave Launch™ program, a quantum jump-start program for businesses. Bringing together a team of applications experts and a robust partner community, the D-Wave Launch program provides support to help identify the best applications and to translate businesses’ problems into hybrid quantum applications. The extra support helps customers accelerate designing, building, and running their most important and complex applications, while delivering quantum acceleration and performance.

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