D-Wave Systems, a company specializing in quantum computers, announced that in March it will release a 1,152-qubit processor, code-named Washington. It will allow to create world’s most powerful commercial quantum computers. They should represent a significant progress over earlier 512 qubit quantum processors and especially the 128-qubit ones.

The D-Wave Two computer with a 512-qubit processor are well known in the field of quantum computers, also for the controversies there were over the years. In particular, in June 2014 a study published in the journal “Science” raised doubts about the advantages of this system compared to classical computers.

Quantum computers are still in the experimental stage despite the fact that companies such as D-Wave Systems have been working to their development for years. In this specific case, we’re not talking of laboratory experiments but also of their commercial offer.

D-Wave Systems’ quantum systems raised Google and NASA’s interest and only a few days ago the company announced that it received a new investment of 29 million Canadian dollars, just over 23 million USD. The investors’ identity was kept anonymous and the company has just revealed that the main one is a large institutional investor. The invested figure shows the confidence in the development of quantum systems.

The new Washington processor uses a chip with 2,048 physical qubits but 896 of them are inactive. The 1,152 active qubits should still be a great step forward for D-Wave. Colin Williams, director of business development and strategic partnerships at D-Wave Systems, explained that the size of the processor code-named Washington in terms of qubits isn’t the only improvement. The company also improved the efficiency of the quantum processes to allow the new systems to better exploit their features.

There are no information about the possible costs of a computer with the new Washington processor. Even with regard to previous models, in the past there were only rumors about their costs, which seem to have been around 10 million USD. We just have to wait for news regarding the new systems performance and perhaps new controversies too.

[ad name=”AmazonComputerAndInternet”]