PALO ALTO, Calif. and CALGARY, Alberta, February 18, 2025 -- D-Wave Quantum Inc. (“D-Wave”), a leader in quantum computing systems, software, and services and the world’s first commercial supplier of quantum computers, and Staque, a leading consulting and development practice in AI, blockchain and quantum computing, announced that the companies have built a commercial hybrid-quantum application that simulates and optimizes movements of autonomous agriculture vehicles at scale. The companies expect the application to accelerate autonomy in agriculture, streamlining agricultural operations for thousands of fields in real time.

The new application marks one of the world’s first examples of a customer-facing, real-world product powered by quantum computing for optimization in agriculture. It comes at a time when OEMs, research institutions, policy makers, agricultural departments, environment departments and farm managers are seeking novel ways to increase efficiencies for agricultural operations. Robot routing in complex environments is a hard problem that cannot be solved efficiently on classical computers. The hybrid-quantum application has demonstrated significant speed ups over classical approaches, achieved through D-Wave's hybrid quantum technologies. Specific results are being showcased at World Fira 2025, the global event for agricultural robots in action, as well as Qubits 2025, D-Wave’s annual user conference.

“Traditional computation methods typically require days or weeks to compute solutions, which is too long for agricultural decision makers,” said Krishna Ganesh, COO of Staque. “We believe in the power of quantum technology to transform and innovate, and this strategic partnership with D-Wave will allow us to provide annealing quantum computing solutions with the speed and accuracy that is important for the agriculture industry.”

“There is an urgent need to revolutionize how agriculture resources are managed and optimized,” said Dr. Muhammad Khan, project director and SVP of Innovation of Verge Ag. “Traditional computation methods are unable to provide real-time decisions that are critical to agriculture and, as a result, we are excited about the work to build applications which could provide real-time analysis crucial for farmers and decision makers in a variety of areas including agri robotics, enhancing farming sustainability, and planning for ever-changing conditions.  We believe that quantum-optimized solutions can increase crop production, drive efficiencies, and lower farming costs.”

“We believe that nearly every industry can benefit from the computational power of quantum optimization, and we’re excited to see one of the first hybrid-quantum applications related to agriculture,” said Dr. Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave. “As farmers increasingly adopt autonomous agriculture machines to scale and increase the output of their fields, we believe quantum computing can provide the analysis, speed, and accuracy necessary to maximize production and minimize costs.”