Quantum computing firm D-Wave has extended its agreement with the European arm of Saudi oil company Aramco.
D-Wave has partnered with the Aramco Research Center in Delft, the Netherlands, for the past two years, developing quantum technologies to solve geophysical optimization problems, including intensive seismic imaging.
It’s unclear by how long the partnership has been extended.
According to the Aramco Research Center, the team has used quantum technology provided by D-Wave to create its first subsurface maps, using tens of gigabytes of seismic data as input. The center aims to process a terabyte of seismic data with the D-Wave quantum computer this year.
In a statement, Marcin Dukalski, quantum applications lead at the Aramco Research Center said: “I’m excited to see how far we’ve been able to push quantum technologies to tackle such a large optimization problem as subsurface imaging.”
He added: “We look forward to expanding our work with D-Wave, which will be centered on reaping even greater tangible benefits from the Advantage2 system.”
First unveiled in 2022, D-Wave’s Advantage2 prototype features more than 1,200 qubits and 10,000 couplers and reportedly demonstrates a 20x faster time-to-solution on hard optimization problems.
In March, the company avoided being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange for the third time after the company was able to bring its share price back above a $1 average closing share price over a 30-day period.
Its stock price has not dipped below the $1 mark since the company was relisted.
Meanwhile, state-owned Aramco is the world’s largest producer of oil and has rights to the world’s second-largest proven crude oil reserves. In 2017, a report by CDP and the Climate Accountability Institute found that Aramco was responsible for 4.5 percent of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions from 1988 to 2015, placing second to the country of China.
In May 2024 the company announced it was partnering with French startup Pasqal to install the first quantum computer in Saudi Arabia.
Under the terms of that agreement, neutral atom quantum vendor Pasqal will install, maintain, and operate a 200-qubit quantum computer scheduled for deployment in the second half of 2025.
