Why D-Wave Quantum’s CEO was “quite disappointed” with Nvidia’s Quantum Day

“I expected it to be a bit more thoughtful and respectful,” said D-Wave Quantum CEO Dr. Alan Baratz.

3/26/25 1:35PM

Back in January, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made a bit of an oopsie. His comments that quantum computers were 15 to 30 years away from being “useful” sparked a massive sell-off in pure-play quantum computing stocks.

To try to make amends with the industry, Nvidia announced that it would be hosting a Quantum Day to discuss the industry’s progress, which was part of last week’s GTC.

There, Huang made another oopsie by revealing that when he made those remarks about quantum computing in January, he didn’t even think any of these firms were publicly traded. That’s despite Nvidia partnering with many of these firms on different projects.

We recently interviewed D-Wave Quantum CEO Dr. Alan Baratz, who runs a very real publicly traded quantum computing company, and asked him for his thoughts on how the event went.

His response:

“I was quite disappointed in how the panel that I was involved in went. I think that it was quite self-serving for Nvidia. I expected that, but I expected it to be a bit more thoughtful and respectful. I was surprised when Jensen said, ‘I didn’t even know there were public quantum companies.’ Seriously?
I was disappointed when he said, well, maybe quantum computers aren’t really computers, they’re just scientific instruments. Well, OK, if that’s true, why are we computing the solutions to problems that can’t be computed on your GPUs? I mean, I thought that comment was very kind of derogatory toward the quantum industry and self-serving for Nvidia. And so I just felt that the whole tone and tenor was dismissive of quantum computing and the quantum industry. And that was disappointing to me.”

In San Jose, Nvidia also announced that it would be building an accelerated quantum computing research center in Boston “in collaboration with leading hardware and software makers.”

D-Wave has not been invited to be part of that consortium. That doesn’t bother Baratz too much, though, since he expects the company will be ahead of the curve in pulling off what the chip designer is looking to accomplish, as D-Wave aims to integrate its Advantage quantum computer with a supercomputer in Germany in the near future.

From Baratz:

“We were not approached and yes, it was a mistake. But I’m not too concerned about it because frankly, we’ll probably be up and running with that integration capability at the Julich Supercomputing Center well before it will be up and running in Boston.
I mean, think about it, you know, Jensen is going to provide GPUs for quantum-GPU integration. That’s what we’re doing at Julich with 25,000 GPUs! That will be up and running in months. So no, we were not approached; yes, I think it was a mistake that we are not approached, because we’re quite unique in the quantum industry and I would think that if Nvidia was really interested in understanding how quantum and GPUs relate to one another, you would be interested in doing it with more than just one form of quantum computing.
But we’re already marching down that path. We’re just doing it at a different facility.”

Palantir tumbles after delivering spectacular results

Palantir’s exceptional earnings receive ugly reaction

The valuation agita hitting high-flying stocks overshadowed the AI and intelligence software company’s blowout quarterly update.

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Fermi secures preliminary approval for a low-emissions natural gas plant to meet AI power demands

Power provider Fermi said it has received preliminary approval from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for the planned 6 gigawatts of natural gas generation that’s part of its “Project Matador” to meet the ever-growing power demands of the AI boom.

“At Fermi, our private grid model ensures that the growing demand for AI is met privately,” Fermi America CEO and cofounder Toby Neugebauer said.

Final approval is still subject to a formal meeting and public comment.

The initial gas generators are already en route to the campus, with plans to have these installed and online in 2026, Fermi said.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently remarked that “the ability to get the builds done fast enough close to power” is the biggest constraint he faces, just ahead of an announced deal with IREN to purchase power-secured cloud computing capacity.

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The negative reaction after Palantir’s earnings is spreading to other volatile retail favorites

Palantir is the poster child for a richly valued, retail darling, megacap momentum stock. It’s going down on largely good news, and that’s cascading to hit smaller, volatile segments of the market also beloved by the retail community.

Fuel cell company Bloom Energy and no-revenues nuclear company Oklo are both off about 5% or more in early trading.
Neoclouds Nebius and CoreWeave are facing significant selling pressure.
The quantum space is getting rocked, with D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti, IonQ, and Quantum Computing all down between 3% and 5% as of 9:42 a.m. ET.
Other story stocks deep in the red include SoundHound AI, Rocket Lab, and Opendoor Technologies.

Goldman Sachs baskets that track retail favorites and nonprofitable tech stocks are down more than 2% and 3% as of 9:43 a.m. ET, respectively, while the Invesco S&P 500 High Beta ETF is also off more than 2%.

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Stocks are getting speed checked

A retail favorite failing to build momentum even when it “deserves” to, the most important part of the stock market being told it’s overheating, and the heads of banks warning of a broader pullback.

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Spotify notches another quarter of strong active user growth and improved profitability

Spotify shares are up 3.25% as of 6:45 a.m. ET as investors digest the streaming giant’s Q3 earnings, in which the company reported that it added more than 70 million monthly active users, posted revenues that were up 7% from last year, and improved profitability.

Total revenues climbed to €4.27 billion, or around $4.91 billion, for the quarter, while net income came in at €899 million ($1.03 billion), which translated into adjusted earnings per share of €3.28 — ahead of the ~€1.96 that analysts had expected, per FactSet figures cited by The Wall Street Journal. Spotify now counts a whopping 713 million monthly active users, including 281 million premium subscribers, compared to 640 million and 252 million, respectively, on the same quarter last year.

The boosted figures come on the back of a host of new features that the streaming platform’s introduced, such as “lossless listening,” playlist mixing controls, and direct messages. The company is now forecasting that its total monthly active users will climb to 745 million by the end of the fourth quarter.

With the latest gains today, Spotify is now up ~48% year to date, even as cofounder Daniel Ek announced in September that he’d be stepping down as CEO at the end of the year, almost 20 years on from the company’s inception.