Is D-Wave's Quantum Computer Canada's Big Tech Hope?

Quantum computing is taking off like a rocket these days. The success of the Canadian company D-Wave Systems relies on this kind of computing, and the company is hoping that the popularity of the tech is only going to grow in the next few years. The fact that companies like Google are starting to take a long, hard look at it seems to indicate that a startup like D-Wave can build a pretty solid foundation using quantum computing.

Former Goldman Sachs executive Vern Brownell took over the company in 2009, after initially thinking that D-Wave couldn’t possibly be a good fit for his needs. When he found out that the company was building a quantum computer, Brownell decided he needed to take another look.

“Once I came out here and saw what they were doing, I said ‘I’ve got to do this,’” Brownell said in a recent telephone interview. “I had never seen anything that had the potential to disrupt the computing industry the way this had.”

A quantum computer, which uses the building blocks of matter in order to drive its calculations, has been at the center of getting D-Wave off the ground. Four years after taking over the company, Brownell has led the company getting more than $95 million in money from backers like Goldman and Amazon as well as Lockheed Martin. Quantum (News - Alert) computing could become a way for Canada to once again get some positive headlines in a business sector that has most recently been talking about the failure of Nortel (News - Alert) and Blackberry.

Canada has had to take a backseat, not only to the United States when it comes to technology, but also to European and Asian countries as well. D-Wave could make it a power in the tech sector yet again.