Comparing Quantum Annealing and BF-DCQO

arXiv:2509.14358 · quant-ph · Submitted 2025-09-17 · Read on arXiv

quant-ph

Submitted: 2025-09-17

Updated: 2026-10-16

Comments: 6 pages, 4 figures

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The gist: Recent work [1] has claimed that a gate-model quantum-classical hybrid algorithm called bias-field digitized counterdiabatic quantum optimization (BF-DCQO) [2] outperforms D-Wave's annealing quantum

Terminology

Abstract

Recent work [1] has claimed that a gate-model quantum-classical hybrid algorithm called bias-field digitized counterdiabatic quantum optimization (BF-DCQO) [2] outperforms D-Wave's annealing quantum computers in optimization tasks. We find the opposite to be true, and demonstrate that D-Wave's quantum annealers find solutions of far greater quality than claimed in Ref. [1], while using far less computation time. We also present evidence that suggests the quantum component of the hybrid approach makes minimal contributions to solution quality.

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