By Mackenzie Tatananni
While larger players like Google and International Business Machines threaten to steal its shine, D-Wave Quantum deserves credit for being the first pure-play quantum computing company to commercialize the technology. But what if the technology could be even better?
The company said Tuesday that it had taken a step toward building larger, commercially viable systems. It has cut back on the amount of hardware needed to control large numbers of qubits, the basic units of information in a quantum computer, without degrading fidelity.
Fidelity is measured in a range between 0% and 100%. If it comes in at 100%, that means a quantum gate -- an essential component of quantum machines that enables the execution of quantum algorithms -- operates exactly as intended.
Qubits are extremely fragile, and the slightest changes in the environment can disrupt their delicate quantum state. These basic units of quantum information must be kept at temperatures close to absolute zero. That is difficult to do outside the lab, and part of the reason why today's systems are too error-prone to be widely available.
Most quantum computers include a component casually referred to as a "fridge," a cryogenic enclosure that encases the processor and keeps it cold.
D-Wave's results show that cryogenic control can be built directly onto a quantum chip, as opposed to lab-scale refrigerators, "without sacrificing performance and using far fewer physical resources," Trevor Lanting, D-Wave's chief development officer, told Barron's.
Lanting noted that most quantum computers demand "an impractically large amount of wiring and massive cryogenic enclosures." Controlling more qubits with less wiring is part of the company's endeavor to build increasingly big computers with a smaller physical footprint.
"Scalability is fundamental to the growth and adoption of quantum computing, and we believe this breakthrough brings the industry much closer to a scalable, commercial gate-model system," Lanting said.
The results also confirmed that the on-chip cryogenic control technology D-Wave developed for its annealing quantum computers, now in use, could be applied to gate-based systems, too. Gate-based systems are seen as potentially usable for a broader range of tasks.
Players like IBM and Google as well as pure-play peers Rigetti Computing and IonQ are targeting gate-based systems. The head of IBM Research, Jay Gambetta, told Barron's in June that gate-based quantum was "the only path where you have an exponential speedup over classical computing."
D-Wave's refusal to abandon the annealing architecture helps it stand out in an increasingly crowded industry.When Jefferies initiated coverage on a basket of quantum stocks last month, the firm praised D-Wave's "two-pronged approach" to quantum development.
The firm estimates that annealing makes up around 25% of the total addressable market for quantum computing. As the so-called leader in annealing quantum, D-Wave captures a healthy portion of that.
"Annealing offers immediate commercial use in optimization, while gate-based systems aim for broader transformative impacts with future advances," analysts wrote in a research note last month. D-Wave's clients already use the technology for tasks like scheduling and supply- chain optimization.
The company has taken some heat for its approach to quantum development. D-Wave explored gate-based models after its founding in 1999, but pivoted away from that method until formally announcing its return in 2021.
With the latest achievement in the rearview mirror, D-Wave is looking ahead to building bigger, more complex machines. The company is set to expound on the results at Qubits 2026, a two-day conference at the end of January.
Write to Mackenzie Tatananni at mackenzie.tatananni@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
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January 06, 2026 07:00 ET (12:00 GMT)
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