D-Wave Quantum Inc. Announces $550 Million Acquisition of Quantum Circuits Inc. to Accelerate Error-Corrected Quantum Computing

D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE: QBTS) has entered into a merger agreement to acquire Quantum Circuits Inc. for $550 million, consisting of $300 million in D-Wave common stock and $250 million in cash. This acquisition combines the world's leading annealing quantum computing company with a leading developer of error-corrected gate-model technology, positioning D-Wave as the first dual-platform quantum computing company addressing customers' full range of complex computational problems.

The transaction brings together D-Wave's expertise in scalable control of superconducting processors and its production-grade quantum cloud platform with Quantum Circuits' dual-rail technology featuring built-in error detection. This technology results in higher quality qubits and dramatically lowers the physical resources required for building logical qubits. The combination is expected to accelerate D-Wave's commercial gate-model product roadmap, potentially enabling the company to be first to deliver fully error-corrected, scaled gate-model quantum computing alongside its existing annealing quantum systems.

D-Wave aims to dramatically accelerate the projected time to a scaled, error-corrected gate-model quantum computer through this acquisition. The first deliverable in the accelerated roadmap will be an initial dual-rail system, planned to be generally available in 2026. This development is projected to significantly expand the use cases addressable by commercial quantum computing, moving beyond current limitations to tackle more complex computational challenges across various industries.

The acquisition represents a strategic move in the competitive quantum computing landscape, where error correction remains a critical challenge for practical applications. Quantum Circuits' innovative architecture integrates high-fidelity qubits with intrinsic error detection and handling, which is a key component to reducing the number of physical qubits necessary to build a useful quantum computer. This approach could accelerate the timeline to fault-tolerant quantum computing and real-world applications that have remained theoretical due to current technological constraints.

D-Wave's existing quantum cloud service offers 99.9% availability and uptime, with more than 100 organizations having submitted over 200 million problems to their quantum systems to date. The integration of Quantum Circuits' technology is expected to enhance these capabilities, potentially opening new markets and applications for quantum computing solutions. For more information about D-Wave's quantum computing systems, visit https://www.dwavequantum.com, and for details about Quantum Circuits' technology, visit https://www.quantumcircuits.com.

The transaction positions D-Wave to address what the company describes as customers' full set of complex computational problems through both annealing and gate-model approaches. This dual-platform strategy could provide significant competitive advantages as quantum computing moves from experimental to commercial applications. The acquisition comes at a time when quantum computing is increasingly seen as a transformative technology with potential applications in optimization, artificial intelligence, research, and other fields requiring complex computational solutions.