Quantum Annealer – what is it?

On one end of the spectrum, universal quantum computers are being developed with their number and quality of qubits slowly increasing. At the other end manufacturers such as Fujitsu are trying to allow classic chips to be inspired by quantum physics (digital annealing). In between, an interesting niche has emerged: the segment of quantum annealers.

In a quantum annealer Qubits cannot be universally interconnected using gates, but can find — thanks to actual quantum tunneling effects — global minima for optimization problems faster and better than conventional computers.

Here it is above all the Canadian manufacturer D'Wave who propagates this approach. The world's fastest computer on this basis with over 5000 qubits was inaugurated in January 2022 at Forschungszentrum Jülich.