TOKYO: SPARX Group Co., Ltd. announced that it has invested in Sigma-i Co., Ltd., provider of a total B2B solution that uses quantum annealing machines.
Sigma-i intends to use this round of fundraising to hire more team members to accelerate its business growth, enter more business partnerships, and further increase the pace at which society implements quantum annealing technology.
Sigma-i offers a total solution for issues facing companies using quantum annealing. It provides consulting services on how to leverage quantum annealing, and it leases access to D-Wave Systems’ machines (Sigma-i entered into Japan’s first large-scale use agreement with D-Wave Systems in July 2019).
Quantum annealing uses technologies derived from quantum physics, a discipline that has received much media coverage in recent years. The market sees a great deal of promise in quantum annealing as a fundamental technology needed to instantly process high-dimensional data on a large scale.
Across a wide range of industries that includes manufacturing, logistics, agriculture, and disaster prevention, more companies are using quantum annealing to make machine learning-based predictions and calculate efficient schedules using combinatorial optimization solutions. In this era that has seen both the dawn of quantum science and its subsequent development, Sigma-i is a world-renowned start-up that is promoting joint development with various research institutions and corporations to share with society the research findings of Tohoku University.
The university has a core technology that goes beyond the bounds of quantum annealing’s inherent capacity and boasts massive success with quantum annealing applications.