October 5, 2018

D-Wave launches quantum computing cloud service, Leap

The service seeks to massively crunch the time taken by the cloud to compute workloads by leveraging quantum effects.

quantum computing

D-Wave Systems have launched a quantum computing cloud service called Leap in a bid to minimize the time taken by the cloud to manage workloads. With this service, D-Wave will allow cloud environments to solve problems like factoring large numbers, optimizing routes, and calculating structures that take weeks on traditional computers, in a matter of milliseconds.

According to D-Wave, enterprises that deploy cloud computing and AI are looking at faster methods to manage their workloads. They claim that a faster computing machine will help them reach current business goals quickly and plan new goals in advance.

By introducing Leap, D-Wave claim that they will help cloud natives counter daily computing issues such as optimizing goal routes, factoring large numbers and calculating time-staking structures. They say that this service will not only help customers reach business goals quickly but also allow developers to gain access to quantum computing technology and build applications faster.

Murray Thom, Director of Software and Cloud Services at D-Wave, commented:

We want to enable hundreds of thousands or millions of developers to gain access to quantum computing technology, to understand it, and to develop applications.

There are a few people in materials simulation, finance, and machine learning who will understand quantum programming constructs in two or three sentences.

D-Wave say that they have introduced this service for customers who are new to the quantum computing technology. To make things simple, D-Wave revealed that they are also offering an open-source software development kit (SDK) called Ocean that can be used to build applications and solve problems on the 2000Q (Quantum Computer).

Thom added:

There is the expectation that any software you develop using the open-source Ocean and the free access is contributed back to the community. It’s all about bringing a large developer community together and letting them shape a support network among themselves.

D-Wave’s clients believe that Leap will help democratize quantum computing since D-Wave are allowing anyone to sign-up and work on real-world problems. It will be interesting to see how things shape up in the quantum computing market with D-Ware launching Leap and Rigetti launching their own quantum service.