D-Wave delivers Italy's first annealing quantum computer to Como

[Quasar Ruby]

D-Wave has delivered an Advantage2 annealing quantum computer with more than 4,400 qubits to Villa Saporiti in Como, in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. According to D-Wave's announcement, it is Italy's first annealing quantum computer. The news was shared at the Digital Innovation Forum 2026

The system was funded by Swiss Quantum Technology under a €10 million agreement. SQT has bought 50 percent of the machine's capacity for five years and holds an option to buy the whole system. Within the Q-Alliance ecosystem, the machine has been named VoltaB1

Once it is running, researchers, universities and businesses across Europe will be able to access it through D-Wave's Leap cloud service. That broad access is important, because annealing works best when many different users try it on their own optimisation problems

There is a nice historical touch to the location. A formal inauguration with D-Wave chief executive Alan Baratz is planned for 16 October at Q-Alliance's Quantum per l'Italia event. It is linked to the bicentenary of the death of Alessandro Volta, the Como born physicist who invented the electric battery

D-Wave has been expanding its on premises deployments around the world, and Italy is a sensible addition. Lombardy has strong industrial and financial sectors with plenty of optimisation problems. It will be interesting to see which Italian companies become early users

Which industries in Italy could benefit most from annealing? And is the Volta connection a lovely touch or just clever marketing?

D-Wave Delivers Italy's First Annealing Quantum Computerwww.dwavequantum.com