A B.C.-founded company was one of the stock market’s biggest winners yesterday as it promises to do the near-impossible: deliver non-hypothetical uses for quantum computing.
What happened: Shares of quantum computing company D-Wave Quantum exploded by over 30% after making its latest system available for sale. This system made headlines earlier this year after D-Wave reportedly used it to achieve “quantum supremacy.”
- D-Wave claims its system is the first to demonstrate supremacy for a “useful, real-world problem,” solving practical questions about using magnetic materials.
Catch-up: Quantum supremacy is the proven use of a quantum system to solve a problem that traditional computers would be unable to solve in a feasible amount of time. Past systems have gotten there, but were used to solve esoteric math equations only.
Big picture: D-Wave is a Canadian success story… sort of. It was founded in Burnaby, B.C., by researchers at the University of British Columbia, but went public in 2022 in the U.S., domiciling in Delaware. The next year, it moved its HQ from Burnaby to Palo Alto, California, after being dropped by its Canadian accounting firm.
Why it matters: D-Wave, despite still having a strong presence in Canada, popped off only after moving out of the country, which is alarming. Canada is a quantum powerhouse, but keeping innovative companies in Canada has always been a struggle. Fingers crossed that a federal quantum strategy emphasizing commercialization can break this trend.—QH