D-Wave opens quantum computing gate-model simulator beta program

D-Wave Quantum Inc., a commercial supplier of quantum computing hardware and software, today announced the launch of its gate-model quantum computing simulator program in beta test mode, allowing customers to test error-aware programs.

The simulator is built around D-Wave’s dual-rail superconducting gate-model technology, which is designed to detect errors and correct them, allowing more efficient hardware scaling.

D-Wave offers both gate-model and annealing quantum computing systems. Gate-model quantum computers operate like traditional computers, using Boolean logic gates and allowing procedural programming. Annealing quantum computers, by contrast, manipulate energy boundaries to solve optimization problems.

Different from classical computing, gate-model quantum computing manages probability amplitudes across quantum bits and allows it to create specialized probability gates that can exist in superpositions – creating logical connections that can be 1, 0, or both 1 and 0 at the same time. It can also operate on multi-qubit gates that link multiple qubits through a phenomenon called quantum entanglement.

This architecture enables complex procedural logic systems to exist in multiple states at once before an answer is finalized. This essentially lets a quantum circuit run a calculation rapidly because it executes combinations of a program in parallel using physics.