D-Wave Announces 2,000-Qubit System

Canadian-based D-Wave Systems Inc. has announced its new D-Wave 2000Q. D-Wave is the first commercial vendor to market quantum computing systems. The D-Wave 2000Q is a major upgrade from previous models, doubling the number of qubits from 1,000 to 2,000. According to the company, “With 2000 qubits and new control features, the new system can solve larger problems than was previously possible, with faster performance, providing a big step toward production applications in optimization, cybersecurity, machine learning, and sampling.”

D-Wave also announced their first customer for the 2000Q system, cybersecurity vendor Temporal Defense Systems (TDS). The list price for the 2000Q is $15million.

D-Wave's systems have aroused controversy in the past. The details of implementing quantum computing in the real-world are so arcane that you almost have to be a computer scientist and a quantum physicist to understanding how the system works. Some experts have questioned whether D-Wave systems are actually acting as quantum computers or whether the quantum speedup is significant enough to provide a viable alternative to conventional techniques. Others have expressed support for D-Wave systems and have presented evidence that the systems do indeed operate through quantum entanglement.