Kristen Smith 
Anduril Industries, Davidson Technologies and D-Wave Quantum have teamed up in a new effort to determine whether quantum-enabled optimization can improve how the U.S. military plans for large-scale air and missile defense scenarios.
D-Wave said Tuesday that the team tested hybrid quantum-classical applications designed to address planning problems that become increasingly difficult for conventional computing methods as the number of threats and variables grows.
Alan Baratz, D-Wave’s CEO, described the work as “an important milestone in applying quantum computing to U.S. national defense strategies.”
“Our initial work together shows that annealing quantum computing can be put to use today for mission-critical applications, enabling faster, more informed decision-making for complex problems,” Baratz said.
Quantum innovation is one of the key technology areas on the agenda at the 2026 Defense R&D Summit on Jan. 29. Hosted by the Potomac Officers Club, the summit convenes defense leaders, researchers and innovators to examine technologies shaping future military readiness. Register now.
What Did Anduril, Davidson and D-Wave Test?
The collaboration began with a proof-of-concept project that combined Anduril’s simulation environment, Davidson’s defense modeling expertise and D-Wave’s quantum computing platform. Using complex missile-defense planning scenarios, the partners benchmarked classical-only approaches against D-Wave’s Stride hybrid solver running on the Advantage2 system.
While traditional solvers produced strong results in smaller scenarios, D-Wave said performance slowed as the problems expanded. The hybrid quantum approach, however, maintained an advantage as complexity increased.
According to the companies, the project produced:
- A tenfold increase in processing speed
- Improved threat mitigation effectiveness by up to 12 percent
- An increase of 45 to 60 additional intercepts in a simulated 500-missile attack scenario
Why Are the Companies Pursuing Quantum-Hybrid Defense Tools?
Davidson CEO Dale Moore said quantum computing offers a way to quickly evaluate an enormous number of possible operational outcomes, which could support faster decision-making in space, missile defense and joint force missions.
Anduril President and Chief Business Officer Matthew Steckman commented on the partnership, saying that the effort “looks toward augmenting advanced technologies through quantum by first pressure-testing the technology against real defense problems.”
Anduril, Davidson, and D-Wave intend to scale their partnership by applying quantum-hybrid optimization to other high-stakes domains, such as contested logistics, cyber defense and distributed manufacturing.
The work builds on Davidson and D-Wave’s existing relationship centered on the Advantage2 annealing quantum system based in Huntsville, Alabama.
In 2025, the companies completed assembly of the system at Davidson’s facility and formally launched Advantage2 to support national security applications.
