D-Wave Delivers Italy’s First Annealing Quantum Computer

SQT acquired half the system’s capacity for five years under a €10 million agreement and holds an option to buy it outright.

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Arrival of 4,400+ qubit Advantage2 system advances Q-Alliance’s efforts to expand quantum computing access, accelerate Italian workforce development and support commercial and academic applications

PALO ALTO, Calif. & COMO, Italy--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NASDAQ: QBTS) (“D-Wave” or the “Company”), the only dual-platform quantum computing company providing annealing and gate-model systems, software and services, today announced at Digital Innovation Forum 2026 that its Advantage2^TM annealing quantum computer has arrived in Lombardy, Italy, for installation at Villa Saporiti in Como. Funded by Swiss Quantum Technology SA (“SQT”), the system, referred to within the Q-Alliance ecosystem as the VoltaB1, will give European researchers, universities and businesses access to powerful, production-grade annealing quantum computing technology once installed. Its arrival marks an important step in Q-Alliance’s work to turn Italy’s quantum ambitions into research capabilities, practical applications and industrial opportunity.

The VoltaB1 Advantage2 annealing quantum computer will be formally inaugurated at Q-Alliance’s “Quantum per l’Italia” event on October 16, at the historic Villa Saporiti. Held as part of the lead-up to the bicentennial of Alessandro Volta’s death, D-Wave CEO Dr. Alan Baratz will deliver remarks during the special ceremony, which includes representatives from research, industry and government. The ceremony follows D-Wave’s momentous signing of the Volta Declaration at the World Tech Conference in Milan in June 2026, which established a framework for cooperation on quantum, artificial intelligence and sovereign computing infrastructure.

“Bringing Italy’s first annealing quantum computer to Como marks a historic milestone toward making quantum computing a working capability for Italian innovation and industry,” said Dr. Baratz. “Italy has exceptional scientific talent and industrial strength. Together with SQT and Q-Alliance, we can give Italian teams the technology and hands-on experience to tackle complex problems, develop applications that can move into production, and build expertise in the country. That is how quantum infrastructure becomes industrial advantage.”

The system’s arrival follows a €10 million agreement between D-Wave and SQT to deploy an annealing quantum computer in Europe. Under the agreement, SQT acquired 50% of the system’s capacity for five years and holds an option to purchase the full system. Once operational, the Advantage2 system will be accessible through D-Wave’s Leap™ real-time quantum cloud service, which offers 99.9% availability and uptime.

“The arrival of the Advantage2 system in Lombardy puts physical infrastructure behind our vision for Italian quantum innovation,” said Thomas F. Darden, acting CEO, SQT. “Our investment is intended to connect researchers and businesses with advanced computing resources, support the development of useful applications and help build the expertise that will sustain Italy’s role in the quantum economy.”

Featuring more than 4,400 qubits, the Advantage2 system is D-Wave’s most advanced annealing quantum computer and has demonstrated the ability to outperform classical computing on a complex materials simulation problem that would have taken one of the world’s most powerful classical supercomputers nearly one million years and the world’s annual electricity consumption to solve. Today, some of the world’s largest organizations across aviation, manufacturing, telecommunications and health care are using the Advantage2 system to address real-world problems, spanning optimization, materials simulation and artificial intelligence.

About D-Wave Quantum Inc.

D-Wave is a leader in the development and delivery of quantum computing systems, software, and services. It is the world’s first commercial supplier of quantum computers, and the first and only to offer dual-platform quantum computing products and services, spanning both annealing and gate-model quantum computing technologies. D-Wave’s mission is to help customers realize the value of quantum today through enterprise-grade systems available on-premises and via its Leap™ quantum cloud service, which offers 99.9% availability and uptime. More than 100 organizations across commercial, government and research sectors trust D-Wave to address complex computational challenges using quantum computing. Learn more about realizing the value of quantum computing today and how D-Wave is shaping the quantum-driven industrial and societal advancements of tomorrow: https://www.dwavequantum.com/.

D-Wave Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking, as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the following words: “believe,” “may,” “will,” “could,” “would,” “should,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “trend,” “estimate,” “predict,” “project,” “potential,” “seem,” “seek,” “future,” “outlook,” “forecast,” “projection,” “continue,” “ongoing,” or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words. These statements involve risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from the information expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements and may not be indicative of future results. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including, among others, various factors beyond management’s control, including the risks discussed under the caption “Item 1A. Risk Factors” in Part I of our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K or any updates discussed under the caption “Item 1A. Risk Factors” in Part II of our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and in our other filings with the SEC. Undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements in this press release in making an investment decision, which are based on information available to us on the date hereof. We undertake no duty to update this information unless required by law.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261015801194/en/

D-Wave Media Contact:
Alex Daigle
media@dwavesys.com

Source: D-Wave Quantum Inc.

Key Terms

qubits technical

Qubits are the basic units of information in quantum computing, similar to how traditional computers use bits. Unlike regular bits that are either 0 or 1, qubits can represent both at the same time, allowing quantum computers to process complex problems much faster. This potential for unprecedented speed and power could transform industries, making qubits a key focus for investors interested in cutting-edge technology.

annealing quantum computer technical

A type of quantum computing device that finds low-energy solutions to optimization problems by encoding the problem into a physical system and slowly changing its quantum state so the system settles into the lowest‑energy (ground) configuration; the final configuration corresponds to a candidate solution. It operates by quantum annealing (gradually transforming an initial simple Hamiltonian into one representing the problem) rather than by universal gate-based circuits, so it is specialized for combinatorial optimization and sampling tasks and typically returns approximate or probabilistic solutions influenced by temperature, noise, and how the problem is mapped onto the hardware. Because it is not a universal, error-corrected quantum computer, it cannot in general run arbitrary quantum algorithms but is used where optimization, constraint satisfaction, or certain sampling problems can be expressed in its native form.