customerScore 70/100Watch
Fortune 500 enterprises (AT&T, Optum, NTT DOCOMO) moving annealing applications to production; 37% of H1 2026 QCaaS revenue from production apps vs. 10% prior year
Alan Baratz· D-Wave Quantum· Quantum· 2026-08-13· about D-Wave Quantum, AT&T, Optum (UnitedHealth Group), NTT DOCOMO (QBTS)
“Over 37% of our first half QCaaS revenue was derived from production applications compared to just 9.8% in the first half of 2025...AT&T plans to evaluate additional applications, including outage response, technician routing and network planning and traffic management as it expands its fiber and 5G infrastructure to support rising AI-driven demand...Optum had worked on these mature problems for years, but classical approaches struggled...The initial proof of technology produced results strong enough for Optum to move directly to a production application, bypassing the traditional proof-of-concept stage.”
Why it matters
The acceleration of annealing applications into production at hyperscale enterprise customers signals that quantum optimization is moving beyond research into operational infrastructure. This validates the commercial utility thesis and suggests further capex commitments from large customers for edge/on-premises quantum systems.
Investment implication
Telecom and healthcare IT infrastructure vendors (especially those supporting optimization-heavy operations) should anticipate customer inquiries about quantum-hybrid workflows. Network optimization software providers and supply-chain planning vendors may face disruption or partnership opportunities as customers adopt quantum-accelerated approaches.