D-Wave upgrades Stride quantum optimization software, boosts speed 8X

The hybrid solver now reaches better answers in 15 seconds instead of 120, and D-Wave is rolling out a training track to get developers using it D-Wave Quantum Inc. has upgraded its Stride hybrid solver, and the headline number is simple. A benchmark that used to take 120 seconds to solve now takes 15. That works out to an 8X speedup. The company says the newer version produces better solutions in that shorter window, too. The upgrade was announced on November 4, 2026. It arrives alongside a new three-course learning path meant to teach developers how to actually use the thing. What changed under the hood Stride is a hybrid solver. It pairs D-Wave’s annealing quantum technology with classical computing methods to tackle large optimization problems. The flagship result comes from the traveling salesperson problem. That is the classic puzzle of finding the shortest route that visits every location on a list exactly once. According to D-Wave, the upgraded Stride solver handles traveling salesperson instances with up to 10,000 locations at an average error of just 0.02% from the ideal route. The company also says the new version lands over 200 times closer to the optimal solution than ...