AT&T Aims to Expand Use of Quantum Computing With D-Wave Partnership

By Connor Hart

AT&T entered an agreement with D-Wave Quantum, expanding its use of the company's quantum computing technology to address optimization challenges across its network.

The mobile carrier on Monday said it would initially focus on incorporating D-Wave's technology into its agentic artificial-intelligence solutions. AT&T added that its agentic tools are improving network operations, helping to detect outages and limit customer downtime.

In early application, AT&T has used D-Wave's technology to greatly reduce the processing time for a network optimization workload. Moving forward, the company said it will explore using quantum computing technologies across a broader set of applications such as outage detection and response, technician routing, network build planning, and traffic management.

"D-Wave's annealing quantum computing technology gives us a new way to approach optimization and high-intensity compute challenges across AT&T's network operations," said Lucus Haugen, director of data science for AT&T's chief data office.

Terms of the agreement weren't disclosed.

Shares of D-Wave jumped 8%, to $17.53, in premarket trading, while shares of AT&T were mostly flat.

D-Wave Chief Executive Alan Baratz said the company's agreement with AT&T shows how businesses can turn to quantum computing to solve problems.

"AT&T has incredibly complex optimization problems across its network operations, understands where classical computing is challenged, and is moving quickly to explore where quantum can make an impact," Baratz said.

Write to Connor Hart at connor.hart@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 27, 2026 08:14 ET (12:14 GMT)