Shares in D-Wave Quantum popped on Wednesday after the company claimed a scientific breakthrough in the journal Science. Other quantum computing stocks also gained amid the quantum computing news.
In a regulatory filing, D-Wave said the company "announced a scientific breakthrough published in the esteemed journal Science, confirming that its annealing quantum computer outperformed one of the world's most powerful classical supercomputers in solving complex magnetic materials simulation problems with relevance to materials discovery."
On the stock market today, D-Wave stock rose over 11% to 6.02 in midday trades. Shares in IonQ rose more than 16% to 21.77. Quantum Computing advanced more than 12% to 5.34. Rigetti Computing climbed more than 10% to 8.93.
D-Wave Stock Q4 Earnings Due Thursday
Fourth-quarter earnings for D-Wave stock are due after the market close on Thursday.
Quantum computing stocks have faltered in 2025 after rallying in December.
D-Wave stock has pulled back 35% this year. Quantum Computing has retreated 69%. Rigetti has shed 45% while IonQ stock has tumbled 50%.
Quantum stocks rallied in December after Alphabet's Google announced the "Willow" quantum computing chip. In early January, comments by Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang pressured quantum computing stocks. Huang said that the technology won't be "very useful" for 15 to 30 years.
Quantum computing works on a subatomic level and uses exotic technologies, like supercold superconductor chips. Further, Quantum computing's ultimate benefit is that it aims to solve problems too complex for today's classical computers.
Quantum Computing Stocks: Big Tech Rivals
Quantum computers use quantum bits known as qubits to encode information. These quantum computers generate and control qubits to perform computations.
According to the D-Wave paper published in Science: "An international collaboration of scientists led by D-Wave performed simulations of quantum dynamics in programmable spin glasses — computationally hard magnetic materials simulation problems with known applications to business and science — on both D-Wave's Advantage2TM prototype annealing quantum computer and the Frontier supercomputer at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory."
"The work simulated the behavior of a suite of lattice structures and sizes across a variety of evolution times and delivered a multiplicity of important material properties. D-Wave's quantum computer performed the most complex simulation in minutes and with a level of accuracy that would take nearly one million years using the supercomputer. In addition, it would require more than the world's annual electricity consumption to solve this problem using the supercomputer, which is built with graphics processing unit (GPU) clusters."
Tech industry giants Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon.com have recently announced quantum computing advances. Nvidia could make quantum computing news at its GTC event next week.
Follow Reinhardt Krause on Twitter @reinhardtk_tech for updates on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and cloud computing.
