D-Wave Updates Its Constrained Quadratic Model (CQM) Hybrid Solver and Also Updates the Quantum A...

D-Wave has been continuously improving its Constrained Quadratic Model (CQM) Hybrid Solver to make it easier for end users to use and to allow them to develop programs faster that will run on their quantum annealer. The previous update was in October last year when they introduced the Constrained Quadratic Model solver that provided the capability of specifying constraints that the programming would need to observe. However, that previous version could only handle variables that could be represented as integer values and could not handle variables that could take on continuous values. That limitation has been removed with this newest release and the software can now handle continuous variables and make it more applicable to a wider range of problems. Of course, a sophisticated user could always find a way to do something like this manually, by providing software that can do this automatically it will make it quicker and easier for even non-sophisticated users to do this. Additional information about D-Wave's release to support continuous various is available in a press release located here.

A D-Wave quantum annealer has been installed at the USC-Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center (QCC) at the University of Southern California (USC) since 2011 with a 128 qubit D-Wave One processor and it has been regularly upgraded as new models of D-Wave's annealer were introduced. D-Wave has just announced that they have upgraded the machine at USC to the latest D-Wave Advantage system with 5000 qubits. Perhaps, even more interesting is the announcement that this machine will also be available for public use through the Amazon Braket cloud service. This will be the third D-Wave machine available through Amazon Braket, but the other two are located in Canada. So this will be the first one physically located in the United States which may be a comfort to U.S. users worried about data residency issues. You can access D-Wave's press release announcement about this here.

May 12, 2022