D-Wave Quantum jumps on $20 million system sale, deal with Davidson and Anduril for US air and missile defense

D-Wave Quantum spiked in premarket trading Tuesday after the quantum computing company shared a trifecta of good news:

• a $20 million system sale of its Advantage2 quantum computer to Florida Atlantic University,

• a partnership with Davidson Technologies and Anduril Industries that aims to help improve US missile defense planning, and

• a $10 million, two-year quantum computing as a service deal with an unnamed Fortune 100 company.

Shares pared gains to trade 1% higher as of 10:40 a.m. ET.

This marks D-Wave’s first full stand-alone sale of an Advantage2, though the company has previously reached agreements to install these systems at other locations.

To turn to national security, a proof of concept that combined Anduril’s simulations, Davidson’s modeling, and D-Wave’s quantum tech “evaluated complex missile-defense planning scenarios” and found significant benefits relative to classical computers, “delivering at least 10x faster time-to-solution, a 9% to 12% improvement in threat mitigation, and the ability to intercept an additional 45–60 missiles in a 500-missile attack simulation,” per the press release.

Anduril Industries and Davidson Technologies have been recipients of lucrative defense contracts, including ones related to missile defense.

Getting a piece of US government budgets would be a major breakthrough for D-Wave. The company is the major player in annealing quantum computing, an approach that solves more specialized optimization problems. Gate-based quantum computers, which aim to address even more complex and broad queries, are the dominant approach being pursued by publicly traded quantum computing firms. These peers soared after inking deals with the Department of Energy and Air Force Research Laboratory last year.

“Our collaboration with Anduril and Davidson marks an important milestone in applying quantum computing to U.S. national defense strategies,” D-Wave CEO Dr. Alan Baratz said. “Our initial work together shows that annealing quantum computing can be put to use today for mission-critical applications, enabling faster, more informed decision-making for complex problems.”

Baratz had previously expressed feeling left out in the cold by the US government because of its specialization in annealing. In May, he told us he “couldn’t even get a foot in the door” with the US government, calling its focus on gate-based models “profoundly disappointing.”

After D-Wave’s Q3 earnings report in November, we asked Baratz on any commercial implications of the firm’s partnership with Davidson, in which one of its Advantage2 systems was then fully up and running. He told us:

“We’ve been working with Davidson and frankly another government contractor on several applications that could open up other opportunities for us with the US government. So for us, it’s really not about R&D funding, which is what the other quantum companies are looking at with respect to the US government. For us, it’s about selling them something that can deliver value for them, access to our quantum computers to solve their hard problems. Now, I will say though that the work that we’ve been doing with Davidson has also triggered two inquiries about purchasing one of our systems.”

Baratz has previously suggested that the US government should buy D-Wave’s quantum systems in exchange for an equity stake.