Insider Brief
- SkyWater Technology and D-Wave Quantum have signed a multi-year agreement to continue specialized semiconductor process development and manufacturing for D-Wave’s superconducting quantum systems.
- The agreement extends a collaboration spanning more than a decade, including manufacturing D-Wave’s Advantage2 processors at SkyWater’s Minnesota facility.
- In a separate project, D-Wave’s quantum annealing technology helped optimize maintenance scheduling at SkyWater’s fab, reducing lot delays by up to 30%.
PRESS RELEASE — SkyWater Technology (“SkyWater”), the first quantum foundry in the U.S., and D-Wave Quantum Inc. (Nasdaq: QBTS) (“D-Wave”), the only dual-platform quantum computing company providing both annealing and gate-model systems, software and services, today announced a multi-year agreement. This collaboration extends the long-established partnership between both companies, to continue specialized semiconductor process development and manufacturing in support of D-Wave’s quantum technology roadmap.
D-Wave‘s work with the process integration and manufacturing team at SkyWater’s Minnesota fab spans more than a decade, creating a deep base of process knowledge around its superconducting quantum technologies. The two companies are working together and bring different strengths. D-Wave knows how to engineer superconducting processes and how to design quantum systems and processors. SkyWater is skilled at combining manufacturing steps into one process, engineering materials, making very thin layers of material, and manufacturing semiconductors.
That technical collaboration has supported multiple generations of D-Wave technology, including fabrication of Advantage2
processors. A D-Wave Advantage2 system, fabricated at SkyWater, was used in research published in Science in 2025 demonstrating performance beyond classical approaches on a useful quantum simulation problem.
Under the new agreement, D-Wave will continue its relationship with SkyWater’s Minnesota fab team, providing manufacturing continuity and access to specialized process expertise developed around its technology requirements. The agreement builds on that established technical foundation, with terms that protect D-Wave’s intellectual property as the company advances its quantum systems.
Separately, the companies collaborated on a proof-of-technology project earlier this year, applying D-Wave’s annealing quantum computing technology to drive more efficient manufacturing processes at SkyWater’s fab. The optimized maintenance schedule reduced lot delays by up to 30%, improving factory throughput. A forthcoming proof-of-concept will focus on extending the model to include resource availability, technician constraints, and additional fab-specific operational constraints.
“Our team has developed deep process knowledge around D-Wave‘s highly specialized technology, demonstrating the value of close collaboration between quantum innovators and semiconductor manufacturers,” said Thomas Sonderman, CEO of SkyWater Technology. “This agreement reinforces our commitment to providing D-Wave and customers across the quantum ecosystem with the unique process development and manufacturing capabilities they need to advance their technologies.”
“Our work with the SkyWater team has played an important role in powering the past decade of D-Wave‘s superconducting quantum annealing technology,” said Dr. Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave. “This agreement provides continuity with an experienced manufacturing team and specialized process capabilities we know well as we build the next generations of our quantum systems.”
The agreement reflects growing demand for semiconductor manufacturing infrastructure capable of supporting the specialized materials, processes and integration requirements of quantum technologies. SkyWater recently launched SkyWater Quantum Solutions to help quantum companies transition technologies from development toward repeatable manufacturing. The company continues to serve existing customers such as D-Wave across the broader quantum ecosystem.