The gist of it
With a continued focus on providing optimization solutions today, Strangeworks is also announcing that it is officially the first international reseller of the NEC Vector Annealing Service, which provides large-scale combinatorial problem-solving performance with high-speed optimization, utilizing NEC's proprietary quantum-inspired annealing algorithm to tackle problems in shipping route optimization, production planning optimization, credit card fraud detection, layout optimization for wind farms, optimal evacuation route suggestions, and more.
Over the past two years, Strangeworks has formalized numerous key strategic partnerships with several leading Japanese companies to bolster its Strangeworks Optimization offering. The inclusion of real-world proven quantum-inspired technologies on the Strangeworks compute platform underscores the company’s commitment to providing optimization solutions to enterprises today, as these technologies already demonstrate real-world value.
“NEC is a key partner of Strangeworks, and we are thrilled to be the only reseller of their cutting-edge vector annealing technology outside of the Japanese market,” said Strangeworks founder and CEO William ‘whurley’ Hurley. “The ability for Strangeworks to bring the NEC Vector Annealing Service to our customers across the U.S., Europe, and Asia will continue to drive adoption of near-term quantum-inspired technologies.”
Strangeworks officially provides access to the NEC Vector Annealing Service 2.0 today, which had been provided as a trial and will add the latest 3.0 Service within the coming months. The 2.0 service can handle the size of a problem up to 300,000 bits with full coupling.
The current Vector Annealing Service 2.0 became available on Strangeworks’ platform in the third quarter of 2023 through the Strangeworks Backstage Pass Program, which provides free, early access to select technologies. The NEC 2.0 Backstage Pass offering has been highly successful, bringing users from leading universities and enterprises in finance, pharma, energy, and more onto the Vector Annealing Service.
“NEC is pleased to announce the integration of the NEC Vector Annealing Service into Strangeworks' Quantum Cloud platform, making it available to customers around the world,” said Shigeki Wada, Corporate Senior Vice President, NEC. “The NEC Vector Annealing Service has already been put to practical use in the optimization of planning operations such as production and delivery planning. Now, we look forward to accelerating the resolution of a wider range of business issues in more industries around the world.”
Building upon Vector Annealing Service 2.0's exceptional performance with real-world constraints, the upcoming Vector Annealing Service 3.0 will introduce features such as Constraint Priority for the efficient handling of inequality constraints, Higher-Order Terms Support for quadratic, cubic & higher-order polynomials, and Constraint Weight Auto-Tuning functionality. The NEC Vector Annealing Service 2.0 and 3.0 will be available to users on a monthly subscription basis for access to unlimited compute.
To access the Strangeworks Compute platform and the NEC Vector Annealing Service, please email us at hello@strangeworks.com.
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