D-Wave disputes claims its quantum supremacy result was overturned

D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE: QBTS) responded to claims that recent classical simulation work has overturned the company's demonstration of quantum computational supremacy, stating the assertion is inaccurate and unsupported by scientific evidence.

The quantum computing company addressed work from researchers at the Flatiron Institute and collaborators that claimed to challenge D-Wave's peer-reviewed findings published in Science magazine. D-Wave said the recent work does not reproduce the full scope of its original demonstration or solve the most complex problem instances reported in the study.

D-Wave's original Science paper, titled "Beyond-classical computation in quantum simulation," demonstrated quantum simulation of magnetic spin dynamics using D-Wave annealing quantum computers across multiple topologies including square, cubic, diamond and biclique configurations. The study reported that matching D-Wave's simulation quality with matrix product state methods would require nearly one million years on the Frontier supercomputer.

"D-Wave's demonstration of beyond-classical computation continues to hold up under careful scientific scrutiny," said CEO Alan Baratz. "Claims that these advances overturn D-Wave's result are inaccurate. A claim that strong requires reproducing the full scope of our demonstration, including the hardest cases and the full set of measurements."

D-Wave researchers noted in a March 2025 response that the Flatiron Institute's work did not attempt the most complex lattice geometry, did not reproduce the largest simulations in 3D lattices, and did not produce the full-state and fourth-order observables reported in D-Wave's original paper.

Chief Development Officer Trevor Lanting said the BP-TNS algorithm developed by the Flatiron Institute "is effective in some regimes and ineffective in others," noting it fails for strongly coupled three-dimensional spin glasses on cubic and diamond lattices.

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