- AT&T expanded its partnership with D-Wave for quantum computing
- The expansion includes work on outage detection and response, technician routing, network build planning and traffic management
- D-Wave said AT&T cut network optimization processing time from approximately one hour to less than 15 seconds using its quantum tech
AT&T has been working with quantum computing technology company D-Wave on improving processing time for network optimization workloads. Now, the Tier 1 operator is expanding that partnership to include outage detection and response, technician routing, network build planning and traffic management, according to an announcement today by D-Wave.
With this announcement AT&T joins the list of operators working with quantum tech companies, but what sets this partnership apart from some of the others this year is that AT&T is working to improve its network functionality using quantum technologies.
"AT&T is focusing on layering D-Wave's annealing quantum computing technology into the tools that are already powering AT&T’s agentic AI solutions. Agentic tools in AT&T’s network are improving network operations like outage detection and management, reducing customer downtime by 12 million hours in 2025. New quantum capabilities could help increase the benefits of agents in AT&T’s network operations," noted the press release.
Quantum annealing is a specialized, analog approach designed to find the absolute best choice from millions of possibilities. Annealing differs from gate-model computing, which is a universal, digital approach that applies step-by-step logic to execute any quantum algorithm, according to D-Wave.
"In an early application, AT&T used D-Wave's technology to reduce the processing time for a network optimization workload from approximately one hour to less than 15 seconds," stated the press release. "AT&T plans to explore using D-Wave’s quantum computing technology across a broader set of applications, such as outage detection and response, technician routing, network build planning, and traffic management."
AT&T is also investigating how faster processing could translate into faster and more accurate planning, as the Tier 1 operator scales its converged fiber and 5G network to meet growing AI-driven demand.
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