The company’s “most advanced” quantum computer features the first 2,000-qubit processor, doubling the capacity of the previous D-Wave 2X model currently deployed in a joint venture between Google and NASA. D-Wave modestly admitted that this gives the firm a serious march on others in the field.

New in the latest iteration of the D-Wave 2X is a series of control features that allow users to tune the quantum computing process in order to solve problems faster and find more diverse solutions.

This trick has yielded improvements of over 1,000x compared with the last generation, according to D-Wave, although we’ve taken that with the appropriate ‘in optimum conditions’ pinch of salt.

So that’s 1,000x faster than the old D-Wave which, it was claimed at the time, is itself 1,000x faster than a conventional single-core computer. That’s (gets calculator out) loads of times more!  OK, so 100 billion times, to be precise. Which gives rise to the question: if it’s that smart how come it isn’t sentient and on a rampage to wipe out mankind?

“As the only company to have developed and commercialised a scalable quantum computer, we’re continuing our record of rapid increases in the power of our systems, now up to 2,000 qubits,” said Jeremy Hilton, senior vice president of systems at D-Wave.

“Our growing user base provides real-world experience that helps us design features and capabilities that provide quantifiable benefits. A good example of this is giving users the ability to tune the quantum algorithm to improve application performance.”

Examples of tweaks include tuning the rate of annealing of individual qubits, sampling the state of the quantum computer during the quantum annealing process to power hybrid quantum-classical machine learning algorithms that were not possible before, and combining quantum processing with classical processing to improve the quality of optimisation and sampling results returned from the system.

So, yeah. That stuff. Awesome.

Of course, if you have to ask how much all this costs you’re not really the target audience, but to give you an idea D-Wave is having a conference this week attended by the likes of NASA, Lockheed Martin, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the UK Department for Work and Pensions.