Beyond Classical: D-Wave First to Demonstrate Quantum Supremacy on Useful, Real-World Problem
D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE: QBTS) has achieved a groundbreaking milestone in quantum computing, demonstrating the first-ever quantum computational supremacy on a practical problem. Their Advantage2 annealing quantum computer successfully performed complex magnetic materials simulations in minutes that would take nearly one million years and consume more than the world's annual electricity using classical supercomputers.
The achievement, published in Science journal's 'Beyond-Classical Computation in Quantum Simulation,' showcases D-Wave's quantum computer outperforming one of the world's most powerful classical supercomputers in solving magnetic materials simulation problems. The research involved collaboration with scientists worldwide and utilized both D-Wave's Advantage2 prototype and the Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Since February 2024, D-Wave customers have run nearly 9.5 million problems on the Advantage2 prototype, which is available through D-Wave's Leap cloud service. The company has now developed an Advantage2 processor four times larger than the prototype used in this research, extending simulations from hundreds to thousands of qubits.
D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE: QBTS) ha raggiunto un traguardo rivoluzionario nel campo del calcolo quantistico, dimostrando la prima supremazia computazionale quantistica su un problema pratico. Il loro computer quantistico Advantage2 ha eseguito con successo simulazioni complesse di materiali magnetici in pochi minuti, un'operazione che richiederebbe quasi un milione di anni e consumerebbe più dell'elettricità annuale del mondo utilizzando supercomputer classici.
Questo risultato, pubblicato nel journal Science nell'articolo 'Beyond-Classical Computation in Quantum Simulation', mostra come il computer quantistico di D-Wave superi uno dei supercomputer classici più potenti al mondo nella risoluzione di problemi di simulazione di materiali magnetici. La ricerca ha coinvolto la collaborazione con scienziati di tutto il mondo e ha utilizzato sia il prototipo Advantage2 di D-Wave che il supercomputer Frontier presso il Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Da febbraio 2024, i clienti di D-Wave hanno eseguito quasi 9,5 milioni di problemi sul prototipo Advantage2, disponibile attraverso il servizio cloud Leap di D-Wave. L'azienda ha ora sviluppato un processore Advantage2 quattro volte più grande del prototipo utilizzato in questa ricerca, estendendo le simulazioni da centinaia a migliaia di qubit.
D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE: QBTS) ha logrado un hito revolucionario en la computación cuántica, demostrando la primera supremacía computacional cuántica en un problema práctico. Su computadora cuántica Advantage2 realizó con éxito simulaciones complejas de materiales magnéticos en minutos, lo que tomaría casi un millón de años y consumiría más que la electricidad anual del mundo utilizando supercomputadoras clásicas.
Este logro, publicado en el artículo de la revista Science 'Beyond-Classical Computation in Quantum Simulation', muestra cómo la computadora cuántica de D-Wave supera a una de las supercomputadoras clásicas más poderosas del mundo en la resolución de problemas de simulación de materiales magnéticos. La investigación involucró la colaboración con científicos de todo el mundo y utilizó tanto el prototipo Advantage2 de D-Wave como la supercomputadora Frontier en el Laboratorio Nacional Oak Ridge.
Desde febrero de 2024, los clientes de D-Wave han ejecutado casi 9.5 millones de problemas en el prototipo Advantage2, que está disponible a través del servicio en la nube Leap de D-Wave. La compañía ha desarrollado ahora un procesador Advantage2 cuatro veces más grande que el prototipo utilizado en esta investigación, ampliando las simulaciones de cientos a miles de qubits.
D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE: QBTS)는 양자 컴퓨팅 분야에서 혁신적인 이정표를 세우며, 실용적인 문제에 대한 최초의 양자 계산 우위를 입증했습니다. 그들의 Advantage2 양자 컴퓨터는 복잡한 자성 물질 시뮬레이션을 몇 분 만에 성공적으로 수행했으며, 이는 고전 슈퍼컴퓨터를 사용했을 경우 거의 백만 년이 걸리고 세계 연간 전력을 초과하는 소비가 필요합니다.
이 성과는 Science 저널의 'Beyond-Classical Computation in Quantum Simulation'에서 발표되었으며, D-Wave의 양자 컴퓨터가 자성 물질 시뮬레이션 문제를 해결하는 데 있어 세계에서 가장 강력한 고전 슈퍼컴퓨터 중 하나를 초월하는 모습을 보여줍니다. 이 연구는 전 세계의 과학자들과의 협력을 포함하며, D-Wave의 Advantage2 프로토타입과 Oak Ridge National Laboratory의 Frontier 슈퍼컴퓨터를 모두 활용했습니다.
2024년 2월 이후, D-Wave 고객들은 Advantage2 프로토타입에서 거의 950만 개의 문제를 실행했습니다. 이는 D-Wave의 Leap 클라우드 서비스를 통해 이용 가능합니다. 이제 회사는 이 연구에 사용된 프로토타입보다 4배 더 큰 Advantage2 프로세서를 개발하여 시뮬레이션을 수백 개에서 수천 개의 큐비트로 확장했습니다.
D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE: QBTS) a atteint un jalon révolutionnaire dans le domaine de l'informatique quantique, démontrant la première suprématie computationnelle quantique sur un problème pratique. Leur ordinateur quantique Advantage2 a réussi à réaliser en quelques minutes des simulations complexes de matériaux magnétiques, une tâche qui prendrait presque un million d'années et consommerait plus que la consommation électrique annuelle du monde en utilisant des superordinateurs classiques.
Cette réalisation, publiée dans l'article de la revue Science 'Beyond-Classical Computation in Quantum Simulation', met en avant le fait que l'ordinateur quantique de D-Wave surpasse l'un des superordinateurs classiques les plus puissants au monde dans la résolution de problèmes de simulation de matériaux magnétiques. La recherche a impliqué la collaboration avec des scientifiques du monde entier et a utilisé à la fois le prototype Advantage2 de D-Wave et le superordinateur Frontier au Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Depuis février 2024, les clients de D-Wave ont exécuté près de 9,5 millions de problèmes sur le prototype Advantage2, qui est disponible via le service cloud Leap de D-Wave. L'entreprise a maintenant développé un processeur Advantage2 quatre fois plus grand que le prototype utilisé dans cette recherche, étendant les simulations de centaines à des milliers de qubits.
D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE: QBTS) hat einen bahnbrechenden Meilenstein in der Quantencomputing erreicht und die erste Quantenberechnungssuprematie bei einem praktischen Problem demonstriert. Ihr Advantage2 Quantencomputer führte erfolgreich komplexe Simulationen magnetischer Materialien in Minuten durch, was mit klassischen Supercomputern fast eine Million Jahre dauern und mehr als den jährlichen Stromverbrauch der Welt erfordern würde.
Dieser Erfolg, veröffentlicht im 'Beyond-Classical Computation in Quantum Simulation' Artikel der Zeitschrift Science, zeigt, wie D-Waves Quantencomputer einen der leistungsstärksten klassischen Supercomputer der Welt bei der Lösung von Problemen zur Simulation magnetischer Materialien übertrifft. Die Forschung beinhaltete die Zusammenarbeit mit Wissenschaftlern aus der ganzen Welt und nutzte sowohl D-Waves Advantage2-Prototyp als auch den Frontier-Supercomputer am Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Seit Februar 2024 haben D-Wave-Kunden fast 9,5 Millionen Probleme auf dem Advantage2-Prototyp ausgeführt, der über den Leap-Cloud-Service von D-Wave verfügbar ist. Das Unternehmen hat nun einen Advantage2-Prozessor entwickelt, der viermal so groß ist wie der in dieser Forschung verwendete Prototyp, wodurch die Simulationen von Hunderten auf Tausende von Qubits ausgeweitet werden.
- First demonstration of quantum supremacy on practical, commercially valuable problems
- Significant computational advantage over classical supercomputers
- Technology already available to customers through Leap cloud service
- Developed larger Advantage2 processor with 4x capacity
- Strong validation from leading industry experts and institutions
- None.
Insights
D-Wave's demonstration of quantum computational supremacy on a practical problem represents a watershed moment in quantum computing. Unlike previous disputed claims or those involving random number generation, D-Wave has achieved quantum supremacy in magnetic materials simulation—a commercially valuable application with implications across industries including medical imaging, electronics, and superconductors.
The Science-published research validates that D-Wave's Advantage2 annealing quantum computer can perform in minutes what would take classical supercomputers nearly one million years, while consuming more electricity than the entire world produces annually. This concrete advantage in a practical domain differentiates D-Wave's achievement from other quantum supremacy claims.
What makes this particularly significant is that D-Wave's technology is commercially available now through their Leap cloud service. Customers have already run nearly 9.5 million problems on the prototype since February 2024. More impressively, D-Wave has already built an Advantage2 processor four times larger than the prototype that achieved this breakthrough.
This achievement positions D-Wave uniquely in the quantum computing landscape. While competitors primarily focus on gate-based quantum computing approaches that may require years of development before showing practical advantages, D-Wave's quantum annealing approach is already demonstrating real-world utility. The company's focus on solving practical problems rather than pursuing theoretical advantages is now paying dividends.
For the materials science industry, this breakthrough could accelerate discovery timelines from years to days, potentially revolutionizing development cycles in pharmaceuticals, advanced materials, and electronics. The endorsements from leading quantum experts at MIT, ETH Zürich, and Tokyo Institute of Technology underscore the technical significance of this milestone.
As D-Wave continues scaling its technology, we can expect applications to expand beyond materials simulation into other computationally intensive domains like optimization problems in logistics, finance, and machine learning—all areas where quantum advantage could translate to significant commercial value.
- New landmark peer-reviewed paper published in Science, “Beyond-Classical Computation in Quantum Simulation,” unequivocally validates D-Wave’s achievement of the world’s first and only demonstration of quantum computational supremacy on a useful, real-world problem
- Research shows D-Wave annealing quantum computer performs magnetic materials simulation in minutes that would take nearly one million years and more than the world’s annual electricity consumption to solve using a classical supercomputer built with GPU clusters
- D-Wave Advantage2 annealing quantum computer prototype used in supremacy achievement, a testament to the system’s remarkable performance capabilities
A close-up look at D-Wave’s Advantage2 annealing quantum computer prototype. Since February 2024, D- Wave customers have run nearly 9.5 million problems on the Advantage2 annealing quantum computer prototype. (Photo: Business Wire)
An international collaboration of scientists led by D-Wave performed simulations of quantum dynamics in programmable spin glasses—computationally hard magnetic materials simulation problems with known applications to business and science—on both D-Wave’s Advantage2™ prototype annealing quantum computer and the Frontier supercomputer at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The work simulated the behavior of a suite of lattice structures and sizes across a variety of evolution times and delivered a multiplicity of important material properties. D-Wave’s quantum computer performed the most complex simulation in minutes and with a level of accuracy that would take nearly one million years using the supercomputer. In addition, it would require more than the world’s annual electricity consumption to solve this problem using the supercomputer, which is built with graphics processing unit (GPU) clusters.
“This is a remarkable day for quantum computing. Our demonstration of quantum computational supremacy on a useful problem is an industry first. All other claims of quantum systems outperforming classical computers have been disputed or involved random number generation of no practical value,” said Dr. Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave. “Our achievement shows, without question, that D-Wave’s annealing quantum computers are now capable of solving useful problems beyond the reach of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. We are thrilled that D-Wave customers can use this technology today to realize tangible value from annealing quantum computers.”
Realizing an Industry-First Quantum Computing Milestone
The behavior of materials is governed by the laws of quantum physics. Understanding the quantum nature of magnetic materials is crucial to finding new ways to use them for technological advancement, making materials simulation and discovery a vital area of research for D-Wave and the broader scientific community. Magnetic materials simulations, like those conducted in this work, use computer models to study how tiny particles not visible to the human eye react to external factors. Magnetic materials are widely used in medical imaging, electronics, superconductors, electrical networks, sensors, and motors.
“This research proves that D-Wave’s quantum computers can reliably solve quantum dynamics problems that could lead to discovery of new materials,” said Dr.
Materials discovery is a computationally complex, energy-intensive and expensive task. Today’s supercomputers and high-performance computing (HPC) centers, which are built with tens of thousands of GPUs, do not always have the computational processing power to conduct complex materials simulations in a timely or energy-efficient manner. For decades, scientists have aspired to build a quantum computer capable of solving complex materials simulation problems beyond the reach of classical computers. D-Wave’s advancements in quantum hardware have made it possible for its annealing quantum computers to process these types of problems for the first time.
“This is a significant milestone made possible through over 25 years of research and hardware development at D-Wave, two years of collaboration across 11 institutions worldwide, and more than 100,000 GPU and CPU hours of simulation on one of the world’s fastest supercomputers as well as computing clusters in collaborating institutions,” said Dr. Mohammad Amin, chief scientist at D-Wave. “Besides realizing Richard Feynman’s vision of simulating nature on a quantum computer, this research could open new frontiers for scientific discovery and quantum application development.”
Advantage2 System Demonstrates Powerful Performance Gains
The results shown in “Beyond-Classical Computation in Quantum Simulation” were enabled by D-Wave’s previous scientific milestones published in Nature Physics (2022) and Nature (2023), which theoretically and experimentally showed that quantum annealing provides a quantum speedup in complex optimization problems. These scientific advancements led to the development of the Advantage2 prototype’s fast anneal feature, which played an essential role in performing the precise quantum calculations needed to demonstrate quantum computational supremacy.
“The broader quantum computing research and development community is collectively building an understanding of the types of computations for which quantum computing can overtake classical computing. This effort requires ongoing and rigorous experimentation,” said Dr. Trevor Lanting, chief development officer at D-Wave. “This work is an important step toward sharpening that understanding, with clear evidence of where our quantum computer was able to outperform classical methods. We believe that the ability to recreate the entire suite of results we produced is not possible classically. We encourage our peers in academia to continue efforts to further define the line between quantum and classical capabilities, and we believe these efforts will help drive the development of ever more powerful quantum computing technology.”
The Advantage2 prototype used to achieve quantum computational supremacy is available for customers to use today via D-Wave’s Leap™ real-time quantum cloud service. The prototype provides substantial performance improvements from previous-generation Advantage systems, including increased qubit coherence, connectivity, and energy scale, which enables higher-quality solutions to larger, more complex problems. Moreover, D-Wave now has an Advantage2 processor that is four times larger than the prototype used in this work and has extended the simulations of this paper from hundreds of qubits to thousands of qubits, which are significantly larger than those described in this paper.
Leading Industry Voices Echo Support
Dr. Hidetoshi Nishimori, Professor, Department of Physics, Tokyo Institute of Technology:
“This paper marks a significant milestone in demonstrating the real-world applicability of large-scale quantum computing. Through rigorous benchmarking of quantum annealers against state-of-the-art classical methods, it convincingly establishes a quantum advantage in tackling practical problems, revealing the transformative potential of quantum computing at an unprecedented scale.”
Dr. Seth Lloyd, Professor of Quantum Mechanical Engineering, MIT:
“Although large-scale, fully error-corrected quantum computers are years in the future, quantum annealers can probe the features of quantum systems today. In an elegant paper, the D-Wave group has used a large-scale quantum annealer to uncover patterns of entanglement in a complex quantum system that lie far beyond the reach of the most powerful classical computer. The D-Wave result shows the promise of quantum annealers for exploring exotic quantum effects in a wide variety of systems.”
Dr. Travis Humble, Director of Quantum Science Center, Distinguished Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory:
“ORNL seeks to expand the frontiers of computation through many different avenues, and benchmarking quantum computing for materials science applications provides critical input to our understanding of new computational capabilities.”
Dr. Juan Carrasquilla, Associate Professor at the Department of Physics, ETH Zürich:
“I believe these results mark a critical scientific milestone for D-Wave. They also serve as an invitation to the scientific community, as these results offer a strong benchmark and motivation for developing novel simulation techniques for out-of-equilibrium dynamics in quantum many-body physics. Furthermore, I hope these findings encourage theoretical exploration of the computational challenges involved in performing such simulations, both classically and quantum-mechanically.”
Dr. Victor Martin-Mayor, Professor of Theoretical Physics, Universidad Complutense de
“This paper is not only a tour-de-force for experimental physics, it is also remarkable for the clarity of the results. The authors have addressed a problem that is regarded both as important and as very challenging to a classical computer. The team has shown that their quantum annealer performs better at this task than the state-of-the-art methods for classical simulation.”
Dr. Alberto Nocera, Senior Staff Scientist, The University of
“Our work shows the impracticability of state-of-the-art classical simulations to simulate the dynamics of quantum magnets, opening the door for quantum technologies based on analog simulators to solve scientific questions that may otherwise remain unanswered using conventional computers.”
About D-Wave Quantum Inc.
D-Wave is a leader in the development and delivery of quantum computing systems, software, and services. We are the world’s first commercial supplier of quantum computers, and the only company building both annealing and gate-model quantum computers. Our mission is to help customers realize the value of quantum, today. Our 5,000+ qubit Advantage™ quantum computers, the world’s largest, are available on-premises or via the cloud, supported by
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking, as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from the information expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements and may not be indicative of future results. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including, among others, various factors beyond management’s control, including the risks set forth under the heading “Risk Factors” discussed under the caption “Item 1A. Risk Factors” in Part I of our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K or any updates discussed under the caption “Item 1A. Risk Factors” in Part II of our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and in our other filings with the SEC. Undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements in this press release in making an investment decision, which are based on information available to us on the date hereof. We undertake no duty to update this information unless required by law.
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Source: D-Wave Quantum Inc.
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