D-Wave's commercial quantum cloud service, 'Leap' is now accessible in India

Quantum computing systems, software and services major, D-Wave Systems today announced the availability of its Leap quantum cloud service to India. The move will help accelerate quantum application development across a diverse set of industries by letting developers, researchers, and businesses in India real-time cloud access to commercial quantum computers and Quantum Application Environment (QAE).

Users can access D-Wave’s new version of Leap, which come with a Hybrid Solver Service, Integrated Developer Environment (IDE), Problem Inspector. D-Wave’s forthcoming next-generation 5000+ qubits system, Advantage, will be available to the users via Leap later this year.  Leap can also help them get started with free developer plans, teaching and learning tools, code samples, demos, etc.   

The access to Leap is free for anyone working on responses to the COVID-19 crisis- which has helped in creating promising applications in areas such as hospital resource allocation and COVID diagnostics using MRI imaging. COVID-19 researchers in India can also get this free access now. 

Quantum computing is poised to fundamentally transform the way businesses solve critical problems, leading to new efficiencies and profound business value across industries. “The future of quantum computing is in the cloud,” said Murray Thom, Vice President of Software and Services, D-Wave. He explains how Quantum as a service (QaaS) availability via cloud can help democratizing Quantum Computing tech by powering new business cases across industries.

Excerpt: 

How is India opening up to quantum computing research and use cases vis-a-vis globally? 

India is home to vibrant IT and tech cos, with potentially hundreds of thousands of developers that can now get started coding on a commercial quantum computer. Our goal is to grow the quantum computing ecosystem and equip businesses in countries like India with the tools they need to derive real business value, today, from quantum computing.

It’s always been our goal to expand Leap globally to as many countries as we can. Over the last 20 months, since we launched the first real-time quantum cloud service, Leap, we’ve received numerous requests to expand to businesses and developers beyond North America, Japan, and Europe. Today we’re bringing Leap to India and Australia and are excited to watch these forward thinkers learn and build in-production quantum applications.

India will spend $1.12bn for quantum computing research over the next five years. Do you see this sparking increased interest in pursuing Quantum Computing use cases among the business? 

Bold investments in quantum technology by India’s government will enable businesses, researchers, and developers to solve new problems with quantum technology. Public initiatives like this will accelerate the development and adoption of quantum both in India and internationally, ultimately leading to large-scale, in-production quantum and hybrid applications for businesses, research institutions and government organizations.

What kind of Quantum Computing business use cases are likely to emerge in India going forward and how do you plan to tap those opportunities?

The options are virtually limitless with quantum computing. India is home to hundreds of thousands of businesses across industries that will benefit from cloud access to real quantum computers. To date, over 200 early applications have been developed on D-Wave’s quantum machines, many built on Leap, in fields as diverse as financial modelling, machine learning, route optimization, materials sciences, drug discovery, cybersecurity and fault detection, among others spanning industries like transportation, finance, pharmaceuticals, etc.

How do you compare yourself with IBM, and other QaaS providers like Rigetti, IonQ, etc.?

We’re in the business of business. Others are still grappling with the science.

The difference is simple – D-Wave offers real-time, quantum computing via the cloud and our customers are already seeing tangible business value from using our quantum computers and hybrid technologies. Last year, Volkswagen piloted a smart traffic management pilot in Lisbon, Portugal using D-Wave quantum computer.

By bringing the total number of supported countries to 37 across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific now, we expect to see a significant expansion in the number of hybrid quantum applications that are in production. And since D-Wave offers free Leap plans to developers, if a developer open-sources their code, we provide them with a free minute of quantum computing time per month or 20 minutes of hybrid quantum/classical solvers, enough to run between 400 and 4,000 problems.