D-Wave Systems Inc., a Canadian manufacturer of quantum computers, is making its powerful machines and software development tools available for free through a new internet-based platform.
The move is likely to hasten the commercial use of quantum computers for tasks as diverse as finding the best way to route taxis to hunting for new pharmaceuticals or optimizing financial portfolios.
In the past decade, researchers have built a series of working quantum computers with ever greater capabilities. In 2011, D-Wave became the first company to sell such systems to businesses and government labs.