D-Wave Systems, one of the early quantum computing pioneers, has completed its SPAC deal to go public. Its merger with DPCM Capital was completed last Friday, and today, D-Wave management rang the bell on the New York Stock Exchange. It is now trading under two ticker symbols – QBTS and QBTS WS (warrant shares), respectively.
Welcome to the public market. D-Wave, roughly 20 years old, has long championed quantum annealing as a quicker route to practical quantum computing and last October the company announced plans to add gate-based quantum computing to its portfolio. (See HPCwire coverage, D-Wave Embraces Gate-Based Quantum Computing; Charts Path Forward)
The SPAC deal was completed last Friday and CEO Alan Baratz said in the announcement, “From its inception more than 20 years ago, D-Wave has focused on delivering quantum computing products and services that provide the fastest path to practical, real-world applications with customer value. Today marks a significant milestone in our journey, as we embark on our next phase as a publicly-traded company. [We] are well-positioned to accelerate our growth strategy, using capital raised through the Business Combination along with our new access to the public markets to advance the production of our quantum computing solutions… The era of commercial quantum computing is here.”
A company spokesperson told HPCwire, “This milestone makes D-Wave one of only [four] publicly-traded quantum companies, and one of only 70 SPAC transactions to successfully go public in 2022 (vs. 613 in 2021), showing the market’s validation of D-Wave’s approach to the commercialization of quantum computing. As seen with the rapid development of cloud computing, the commercialization of new technology requires market opportunity, productization, applications, and customer adoption, all of which D-Wave is delivering on to advance the quantum computing industry.”
Whether the era of commercial quantum computing is fully here, as Baratz suggested, is perhaps debatable but it’s not debatable that D-Wave has been at the forefront of fostering its development and building an extensive collaborator-customer list. Its forthcoming quantum annealing-based Advantage2 expected in the 2023/24 timeframe, will have 7,000 qubits. D-Wave recently announced a collaboration with Mastercard that leverage a prototype of Advantage2 introduced in June.
From a recently announced strategic alliance with Mastercard to new customer wins with Forbes Global 2000 enterprises to the introduction of a new prototype of its forthcoming Advantage2 system, D-Wave has taken quantum computing from the lab to the boardroom. Mastercard and D-Wave will collaborate on the research and development of quantum-hybrid applications in areas such as consumer loyalty and rewards, cross-border settlement and fraud management.
D-Wave’s commercial customers include nearly two dozen Forbes Global 2000 companies and industry leaders like Volkswagen, Accenture, BBVA, NEC Corporation, Save-On-Foods, DENSO, and Lockheed Martin, which are exploring quantum hybrid applications. In addition to enterprise customers actively utilizing D-Wave to solve their complex computational problems, thousands of developers across the globe have built hundreds of early quantum applications in diverse areas that include resource scheduling, mobility, logistics, drug discovery, portfolio optimization, manufacturing processes, and many more.
D-Wave has not yet said much about progress on its development of gate-based quantum computing – going public will prompt greater scrutiny overall and perhaps more insight into those efforts. D-Wave joins fellow quantum computing start-ups IonQ (NYSE: IONQ), Quantum Computing Inc. (NASDAQ: QUBT), and Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ: RGTI) as public companies.