D-Wave Quantum has announced an agreement to acquire Quantum Circuits Inc. (QCI) in a deal valued at $550 million, comprising $300 million in D-Wave stock and $250 million in cash. The acquisition positions D-Wave as the only company offering both annealing and gate-model quantum computing technologies. This comes as a recent release has stated the company’s ambition to build gate-based quantum computers.
“With this acquisition, we believe that D-Wave has unequivocally cemented its position as the world’s most advanced and established leader in superconducting quantum computing,”
Dr. Alan Baratz
Dual-Rail Technology and Accelerated Roadmap
The deal brings QCI’s dual-rail qubit technology, which features built-in error detection, into D-Wave’s portfolio. This approach produces higher quality qubits and significantly reduces the physical resources needed to build logical qubits. D-Wave plans to launch an initial dual-rail gate-model system in 2026. The combined technologies are expected to accelerate the path toward fully error-corrected, scaled gate-model quantum computing.
Dr. Rob Schoelkopf, QCI’s chief scientist and co-founder, will join D-Wave along with QCI’s team of superconducting quantum computing experts. Schoelkopf is a Yale professor. He invented both transmon and dual-rail qubit technologies. He will lead a new research and development centre in New Haven, Connecticut. The acquisition is expected to close in late January 2026, subject to regulatory approval and NYSE listing conditions.
The acquisition will make D-Wave the only company with all three key technologies required for scaled, error-corrected superconducting gate-model quantum computers:
- High fidelity, error-detecting dual-rail qubits for efficient error correction with up to an order of magnitude fewer physical qubits per logical qubit
- On-chip cryogenic control and multi-chip superconducting packaging for scaling systems with orders of magnitude fewer I/O control lines
- Robust cryogenic platforms with years of uptime for commercial-grade operations
Since our inception, we have focused on a pragmatic approach to quantum computing – “Correct First, Then Scale.”
Quantum Circuits Inc.
With this acquisition, D-Wave will accelerate the projected time to a scaled, error-corrected gate-model quantum computer alongside and complementary to its commercial annealing quantum systems.
We are excited to continue innovating off of our foundational dual-rail cavity qubits with built-in error detection, and in doing so, be part of D-Wave’s effort to deliver the most efficient, scalable, and reliable quantum computing systems in the industry.
