D‑Wave Quantum reports Advantage2 arrival in Italy under €10M agreement

A funded European quantum deployment has reached the delivery stage, with installation and customer access still to follow. D-Wave Quantum Inc. NASDAQQBTS, the U.S. supplier of quantum computers, software and services, said on Thursday that its 4,400-plus-qubit Advantage2 system has arrived in Lombardy for installation at Villa Saporiti in Como.

Swiss Quantum Technology SA (SQT), the Swiss company funding the deployment, has secured half the system's capacity for five years under a €10 million agreement. It retains an option to purchase the entire machine, according to the Oct. 15 announcement.

D-Wave shares closed down 10.09 per cent at US$12.03 on Nasdaq at 4:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, according to the NASDAQQBTS. That close preceded Thursday's announcement and provides no measure of investors' response to the arrival.

The machine, named VoltaB1, is scheduled for an inauguration on Oct. 16 at the Quantum per l'Italia event promoted by Q-Alliance. D-Wave's release gives no separate date for installation completion, operational acceptance or the start of paid customer access.

SQT Has Secured Half The Capacity For Five Years

The original agreement, announced on Oct. 15, 2025, described SQT's €10 million commitment and purchase option without specifying the capacity allocation or duration. Thursday's update supplies those terms, but does not say SQT has exercised its option to own the computer.

The Oct. 15 update does not disclose a payment schedule, the option's exercise price or how much revenue D-Wave has recognized from the agreement. The disclosed five-year capacity arrangement therefore provides a commercial term, while leaving the timing of cash receipts and accounting revenue unquantified.

D-Wave says European researchers, universities and businesses will gain access once VoltaB1 is installed. The operational system is also intended to be accessible through Leap, its quantum cloud service, so the deployment combines a local machine with remote access rather than limiting use to the Como building.

"The arrival of the Advantage2 system in Lombardy puts physical infrastructure behind our vision for Italian quantum innovation," SQT interim chief executive Thomas F. Darden said in the release, translated from Italian.

Q-Alliance is the initiative supporting the Italian deployment and promoting the Oct. 16 inauguration, where D-Wave chief executive Alan Baratz is scheduled to speak. The release connects the ceremony with D-Wave's signing of the Volta Declaration in June 2026, a cooperation framework covering quantum computing, artificial intelligence and sovereign computing infrastructure.

Advantage2 Reached General Availability In May 2025

The Como arrival extends deployment of an existing product. D-Wave announced Advantage2's general availability on May 20, 2025, offering the annealing system through Leap and for on-premises purchase by hyperscalers and supercomputing centres.

That launch specified more than 4,400 qubits and 20-way connectivity in the processor's Zephyr topology. D-Wave described the connectivity as enabling more complex problems to be embedded, but Thursday's Italian delivery announcement supplies no measured result from VoltaB1 itself.

The May 2025 launch also described integration with hybrid solvers supporting up to two million variables and constraints. That figure is a hybrid solver limit, separate from the physical processor's qubit count.

At its May 2025 launch, D-Wave said Leap was available in more than 40 countries and offered 99.9 per cent availability and uptime. Thursday's release repeats the service-availability figure for access to VoltaB1 once operational, without publishing a separate service-start date for the Italian system.

IonQ Faces Independent Tests Through 2029

IonQ, Inc. NYSEIONQ, the College Park, Maryland, quantum computing developer, said on Oct. 7 that it signed an agreement with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for independent testing through 2029. Its potential value is up to US$300 million, with funding beyond the initial obligation dependent on future appropriations and agency actions.

IonQ shares closed at US$31.42 on the NYSE at 4:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, according to the NYSEIONQ. The testing program follows the funding conditions described in Mugglehead's earlier coverage, while D-Wave's Italian deployment advances a capacity agreement with a named funder.

Read more: IonQ enters DARPA Stage C under agreement worth up to US$300M

D-Wave's next scheduled public milestone is the Oct. 16 inauguration at Villa Saporiti. Its announcement leaves the operational-access date unspecified, so the ceremony will be the next occasion to check installation progress and the timetable for making SQT's contracted capacity available.