D-Wave's Dr. Geordie Rose named Innovator of the Year

Dr. Geordie Rose, founder and CTO of D-Wave Systems Inc. of Burnaby, British Columbia has been awarded the Innovator of the Year Award by the Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX). Rose will be recognized on December 1, at the MaRS Centre in Toronto for developing the first commercial quantum computer, among other accomplishments.

Rose is known as a leading advocate for quantum computing and physics-based processor design, and has been invited to speak on these topics in venues ranging from the 2003 TED Conference to Supercomputing 2011. He received his PhD in theoretical physics from the University of British Columbia, specializing in quantum effects in materials. While at McMaster University, he graduated first in his class with a BEng in Engineering Physics, specializing in semiconductor engineering.

The development of a quantum computer processor has been a longstanding goal of physicists and computer scientists who, until recently, focused primarily on academic research. The technology is comparable in scope to the shift from vacuum tubes to transistors to silicon chips, with vastly more processing power.

Applications currently under development include machine learning, protein folding, image recognition, and search as well as powerful analytics for “big data” sectors like energy usage, consumer behavior or stock market trading.

In selecting the Innovator of the Year, CIX recognized the key milestones achieved in the past 12 months, including the first commercial sale of the D-Wave One System to Lockheed Martin. In addition, CIX lauded the launch of the new Quantum Computing Center based on the D-Wave One System at the Viterbi School Engineering at the University of Southern California.
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