D-Wave to acquire Quantum Circuits for $550 million
The acquisition will bring together D-Wave’s expertise in scalable control of superconducting processors as well as its production-grade, high-availability quantum cloud platform with Quantum Circuits’ leading approach to error-corrected superconducting gate-model technology.
D-Wave Quantum and Quantum Circuits have announced that the companies have entered into a merger agreement under which D-Wave, which is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, will acquire US-based Quantum Circuits for a purchase price of USD 550 million, consisting of USD 300 million in D-Wave common stock and USD 250 million in cash.
By combining the annealing quantum computing company with the developer of error-corrected gate-model technology, D-Wave aims to accelerate the projected time to a scaled, error-corrected gate-model quantum computer alongside and complementary to its commercial annealing quantum systems, according to a media release.
The acquisition will bring together D-Wave’s expertise in scalable control of superconducting processors as well as its production-grade, high-availability quantum cloud platform with Quantum Circuits’ leading approach to error-corrected superconducting gate-model technology, the media release said.
“Together with Quantum Circuits, we expect that D-Wave will leapfrog the industry, bringing gate-model products and services to market in 2026 and rapidly progressing our dual-platform strategy of delivering annealing and gate-model systems to address customers’ full breadth of computational problems,” said Dr. Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave. “It’s a pivotal milestone and one that we believe will secure D-Wave’s long-term value proposition as quantum computing development and adoption accelerates.”
“Combining our dual-rail gate-model processor with D-Wave’s scalable control and readout is expected to enable a nearer-term path to large-scale error-corrected gate-model systems,” said Dr. Rob Schoelkopf, chief scientist and co-founder of Quantum Circuits. “With aggressive roadmaps for both annealing and gate-model technology and a common track record of technology delivery, Quantum Circuits and D-Wave together are in a unique position to address the full spectrum of quantum computing technology.”
“I am incredibly proud of the Quantum Circuits team and the years of innovation that led to our breakthrough in hardware-integrated error correction,” said Ray Smets, CEO of Quantum Circuits. “By joining forces with D-Wave, we are accelerating the roadmap to commercially viable gate-model quantum computers. Our ‘correct-first’ philosophy is the most viable path to scaling quantum for the enterprise, and the power of this partnership ensures we have the global reach to accelerate delivery of this value to customers worldwide.”