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D-Wave Quantum (QBTS) CEO Alan Baratz says his company has already had the splashy moment OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) experienced with the launch of ChatGPT in 2022.
“We’ve already passed that in the sense that our quantum computers have been used to solve problems that cannot be solved classically, full stop,” Baratz told Yahoo Finance at the Semafor World Economic Summit.
Baratz credits the breakthrough to quantum annealing, a specialized method designed to find the single most efficient solution among billions of possibilities. While traditional computers struggle with scale, D-Wave’s tech is already being used for workforce scheduling, cellular networks, and pharmaceutical supply chains.
For these kinds of tasks, Baratz notes that Global 2000 companies, including Volkswagen (VOW3.DE) and Lockheed Martin, are integrating quantum into daily operations. Lockheed Martin was the first company to buy a commercial quantum computer back in 2011.
Since then, D-Wave has continued to sign a string of commercial and federal deals. It recently inked a $20 million agreement with Florida Atlantic University (FAU), plus a collaboration with Anduril Industries and Davidson Technologies on US air and missile defense applications.
But there’s a divide in the industry. While Baratz says D-Wave’s annealing technology is ready now, the industry is still chasing gate-model systems. Annealing machines are specialist tools for specific tasks, like workforce scheduling, while gate-model systems are designed to be universal computers that can handle any task.
“For annealing, we’ve hit that point. For gate model systems. We’re still a few years away from it,” Baratz said, pointing to technical problems and “some real engineering that needs to be done.”
The push for utility comes as the broader AI industry faces a power crisis. As compute needs for large language models multiply, the energy required to run Nvidia (NVDA) GPU clusters has become a primary bottleneck.
Baratz is positioning quantum as the best alternative, noting that a D-Wave system draws only about 10 kilowatts to solve problems that might otherwise require a massive, energy-hungry data center.
Despite the bold “shaking in my boots” rhetoric directed at Nvidia, the market remains in a wait-and-see mode. However, D-Wave has captured Wall Street’s attention. Shares of the company have jumped over 22% recently and are up 200% in the last year, signaling that investors are beginning to price in the company’s commercial pivot.
