D-Wave Quantum Inc., a leader in quantum computing systems, software, and services, today announced a new strategic development initiative focused on advanced cryogenic packaging. Designed to advance and scale both gate model and annealing quantum processor development, the initiative builds on D-Wave's technology leadership in superconducting cryogenic packaging and will expand the company's multi-chip packaging capabilities, equipment, and processes. By bolstering its manufacturing efforts with state-of-the-art technology, D-Wave aims to accelerate its cross-platform technology development efforts while maintaining and expanding fundamental components of its supply chain.

As part of this initiative, D-Wave is leveraging deep expertise and processes at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory ("JPL"), a research and development lab federally funded by NASA and managed by Caltech. Harnessing JPL's superconducting bump-bond process, D-Wave has demonstrated end-to-end superconducting interconnect between chips, work that D-Wave expects will serve as an important foundation for scaling both D-Wave's annealing architectures and its fluxonium-based gate-model architectures. D-Wave believes that superconducting bump bonds will be key to the scalable control of fluxonium and to interconnectivity in multi-chip quantum processor architectures. D-Wave is also acquiring equipment and developing processes with a goal to increase circuit densities in its pioneering superconducting printed-circuit-board ("PCB") manufacturing, required for both scaling to larger processors and supporting analog-digital quantum computing technology.

NEC Corporation, a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies, and D-Wave Systems Inc., the leader in quantum computing systems, software and services, today announced that they have begun joint activities to combine the compute power of NEC's systems with the quantum computing power of D-Wave's systems, software and cloud service to bring those combined capabilities to customers in Japan. NEC has made a US$10 million investment in D-Wave in connection with this initiative.

The two companies will work together on the development of hybrid quantum/classical technologies and services that combine the best features of classical computers and quantum computers; the development of new hybrid applications that make use of those services; and joint marketing and sales go-to-market activities to promote quantum computing.