Sept. 22 — D-Wave Systems Inc., the world’s first commercial quantum computing company, today announced that Bill Blake has joined the firm as Executive VP of Research and Development, responsible for hardware engineering, processor development, software and fab process design functions.

Bill has been a technology leader in the high performance computing industry for three decades. Most recently, Bill was CTO of Cray Inc., responsible for defining Cray’s next generation of supercomputers and solutions including major initiatives in exascale computing and the fusion of supercomputing and large-scale data analytics. He also served on Cray’s Board of Directors from June 2006 to June 2012, where he chaired the Technology Strategy Advisory Committee helping Cray with long-term strategic directions, including expanding into large-scale data analytics.

“Bill’s expertise and experience in developing breakthrough technologies that solve incredibly difficult problems is a perfect fit for D-Wave’s mission,” said Vern Brownell, CEO of D-Wave Systems Inc. “The products he has helped create have driven entirely new markets and redefined how problems of massive scale are addressed. Bill has also demonstrated an outstanding ability to lead teams of engineers and scientists to the highest levels of performance, and his broad industry knowledge will be a tremendous asset as he joins D-Wave’s executive management team.”

Until January 2011, Bill was General Manager of Parallel Computing Platforms in Microsoft’s Technical Computing group. He was previously President and CEO of Interactive Supercomputing Inc., an M.I.T. spin-off company that developed and sold an interactive parallel computing platform that extended existing desktop simulation tools for parallel computing on a spectrum of computing architectures, and was acquired by Microsoft in 2009. Prior to his work at Interactive Supercomputing Inc., he served as Senior Vice President of Product Development at Netezza Corporation, as part of the start-up team that developed parallel FPGA accelerated database systems and created the data warehouse appliance market. Netezza was acquired by IBM in 2010.

Bill also held key management positions with Digital Equipment Corporation, and Compaq Computer Corporation, in compiler and parallel software development. In his role as Vice President, he proposed and managed the market leading High Performance Technical Computing group, ultimately driving a $1.2B business that delivered many of the largest systems in the world based on the Alpha chip.

“What D-Wave has achieved in terms of creating the first scalable quantum computer is awe-inspiring,” said Bill Blake. “It has required huge advances in diverse disciplines including physics, engineering, manufacturing, and computer science. I am excited to join the world-class D-Wave team as they continue to lead the development of quantum computers that will redefine how we solve the currently intractable problems affecting people and organizations today.”

Bill holds a B.Sc. in electrical engineering and is a member of IEEE and ACM. He is a former member of the board of directors of TotalView Technologies, Inc., Terascala, Inc., Cluster File Systems, Inc., and Unlimited Scale, Inc. and a current member of external advisory boards at Sandia National Laboratories, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Boston CommonAngels, investors in early-stage high tech companies.

About D-Wave Systems

Founded in 1999, D-Wave Systems is the first commercial quantum computing company. Its mission is to integrate new discoveries in physics, engineering, manufacturing, and computer science into breakthrough approaches to computation to help solve some of the world’s most complex challenges. The company’s flagship product, the 512-qubit D-Wave Two computer, is built around a novel type of superconducting processor that uses quantum mechanics to massively accelerate computation.

D-Wave’s customers include some of the world’s most prominent organizations including Lockheed Martin, Google and NASA. With headquarters near Vancouver, Canada, the D-Wave U.S. offices are located in Palo Alto, California and Vienna, Virginia. D-Wave has a blue-chip investor base including Bezos Expeditions, BDC Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Goldman Sachs, Growthworks, Harris & Harris Group, In-Q-Tel, International Investment and Underwriting, and Kensington Partners Limited. For more information, visit: www.dwavesys.com.

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Source: D-Wave Systems