Alan Baratz of D-Wave Quantum (David Fitzgerald/Getty Images)

quantum beef

Why D-Wave Quantum’s CEO was “quite disappointed” with Nvidia’s Quantum Day

“I expected it to be a bit more thoughtful and respectful,” said D-Wave Quantum CEO Dr. Alan Baratz.

3/26/25 2:35PM

Back in January, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made a bit of an oopsie. His comments that quantum computers were 15 to 30 years away from being “useful” sparked a massive sell-off in pure-play quantum computing stocks.

To try to make amends with the industry, Nvidia announced that it would be hosting a Quantum Day to discuss the industry’s progress, which was part of last week’s GTC.

There, Huang made another oopsie by revealing that when he made those remarks about quantum computing in January, he didn’t even think any of these firms were publicly traded. That’s despite Nvidia partnering with many of these firms on different projects.

We recently interviewed D-Wave Quantum CEO Dr. Alan Baratz, who runs a very real publicly traded quantum computing company, and asked him for his thoughts on how the event went.

His response:

“I was quite disappointed in how the panel that I was involved in went. I think that it was quite self-serving for Nvidia. I expected that, but I expected it to be a bit more thoughtful and respectful. I was surprised when Jensen said, ‘I didn’t even know there were public quantum companies.’ Seriously?
I was disappointed when he said, well, maybe quantum computers aren’t really computers, they’re just scientific instruments. Well, OK, if that’s true, why are we computing the solutions to problems that can’t be computed on your GPUs? I mean, I thought that comment was very kind of derogatory toward the quantum industry and self-serving for Nvidia. And so I just felt that the whole tone and tenor was dismissive of quantum computing and the quantum industry. And that was disappointing to me.”

In San Jose, Nvidia also announced that it would be building an accelerated quantum computing research center in Boston “in collaboration with leading hardware and software makers.”

D-Wave has not been invited to be part of that consortium. That doesn’t bother Baratz too much, though, since he expects the company will be ahead of the curve in pulling off what the chip designer is looking to accomplish, as D-Wave aims to integrate its Advantage quantum computer with a supercomputer in Germany in the near future.

From Baratz:

“We were not approached and yes, it was a mistake. But I’m not too concerned about it because frankly, we’ll probably be up and running with that integration capability at the Julich Supercomputing Center well before it will be up and running in Boston.
I mean, think about it, you know, Jensen is going to provide GPUs for quantum-GPU integration. That’s what we’re doing at Julich with 25,000 GPUs! That will be up and running in months. So no, we were not approached; yes, I think it was a mistake that we are not approached, because we’re quite unique in the quantum industry and I would think that if Nvidia was really interested in understanding how quantum and GPUs relate to one another, you would be interested in doing it with more than just one form of quantum computing.
But we’re already marching down that path. We’re just doing it at a different facility.”

Claire Yubin Oh56s

Energy stocks follow oil lower as Strait of Hormuz set to reopen

Oil names including Occidental Petroleum, Marathon Petroleum, CF Industries, Devon Energy, Phillips 66, ConocoPhillips, Exxon, and Chevron are all ticking lower on Monday, following oil itself, after the US and Iran agreed to strike a deal to end a conflict that has pushed energy stocks up in recent months.

Alongside the countries both declaring the end of their military operations, US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the Strait of Hormuz would be opened when the agreement is signed in Switzerland on Friday, writing on Truth Social, “Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!”

Let the oil flow?

Vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, however, remains largely unchanged since the announcement of the peace deal on Sunday, per crossing data tracked by AIS. With the exception of some smaller vessels and prearranged crossings, shipowners are likely waiting for the planned signing on Friday and further confirmation from the Iranian side before attempting transits.

Analysts at the Baltic and International Maritime Council said that they “still consider it very risking for ships to commence transits” through Hormuz, adding that they “expect it will take several weeks for all [trapped] ships to leave” in a conversation with CNN.

Stocks soar as US and Iran reach deal to open Strait of Hormuz, end the war

The details of the framework for peace are not yet available.

J. Edward Moreno4h

Helena Cheng6/12/26

AMD shares climb on double Citi upgrade to “buy” with $575 price target

AMD’s shares are rising in premarket trading following a double upgrade from Citi. Citi analyst Atif Malik raised AMD’s investment rating to “buy” from “neutral” and boosted the bank’s 12-month price target to $575 from $460 per share, per Barron’s.

Malik argued that the broader market currently misprices AMD by looking at it primarily as a CPU producer, underestimating its massive GPU potential. Citi says that AMD is uniquely “poised to win the lion’s share” of Meta’s customized graphics chip business. Meta is leaning into AMD’s custom MI450 chips, which deliver a lower total cost of ownership compared to buying traditional off-the-shelf merchant hardware, according to Investing.com.

Citi highlighted a massive multiyear deal between the two tech giants involving a 160 million-share common stock warrant. As the first phase ramps up through 2027, Citi expects each gigawatt of data center infrastructure to translate into roughly $15 billion in revenue. Consequently, Citi hiked its 2027 AMD AI sales forecast to $33 billion (up 137% year over year) and projects GPU sales to reach $50.8 billion by 2028.

CEO Lisa Su recently delivered an optimistic demand forecast, predicting that the global market for CPUs will grow by more than 35% annually over the next five years. The chipmaker delivered a robust Q1 earnings report back in May that beat Wall Street expectations across key data center segments.

Claire Yubin Oh6/12/26

Astera Labs, CoreWeave, Nebius, Rocket Lab, Teradyne rise on Nasdaq 100 Index inclusion announcement

Tech stocks Astera Labs, CoreWeave, Nebius, Rocket Lab, and Teradyne have risen as much as 8.9% in premarket trading on Friday, thanks in part to Nasdaq’s announcement that the five companies will join its flagship Nasdaq 100 Index starting June 22.

As part of the index operator’s quarterly rebalance, which affects some $1.4 trillion in assets within the Nasdaq 100 ecosystem, the companies will replace Charter, Zscaler, Cognizant, Insmed, and Verisk — relatively slow-growth legacy businesses that have lingered around the bottom of the index in market cap terms of late. Most of those stocks slipped slightly on the news.

With CoreWeave and Nebius as two of the major players in the neocloud space, and Astera Labs and Teradyne specializing in making AI hardware and semiconductors, the latest additions reflect how the index is upping its exposure to the AI infrastructure stack. Back in December, Nasdaq also added AI data storage names Seagate Technology Holdings and Western Digital, as well as AI server manager Monolithic Power Systems, as part of its quarterly rebalance.

Jon Keegan6/11/26

Adobe beats on Q2 earnings, revenue; CFO to step down

Adobe reported fiscal Q2 results Thursday, beating analysts’ estimates for revenue and earnings, as its stock plumbed its lowest levels since 2019.

For Q2 2026, the creative software company posted:

Revenues of $6.62 billion (estimate: $6.45 billion).
Adjusted earnings per share of $5.96 (estimate: $5.82).
Annual recurring revenue of $27.1 billion (estimate: $26.6 billion).
Subscription revenue of $6.42 billion (estimate: $6.27 billion).
Remaining performance obligations of $22.27 billion (estimate: $21.86 billion).

The company also said its CFO, Dan Durn, would step down next week “to pursue a new professional opportunity.” And it boosted its full-year guidance for earnings and revenue.

Shares fell 5.5% in after-hours trading.

Adobe is feeling the pressure from AI, as the April release of Anthropic’s Claude Design threatens the company’s core design software business. Shares have tanked lately, with the stock down by nearly half over the past 12 months, putting it at levels not seen in years.

Last quarter, Adobe announced that CEO Shantanu Narayen, who had been at the company for 18 years, would be leaving after his successor was appointed. Today, Adobe announced that CFO Dan Durn would also be leaving the company — this month.

Adobe announced a $25 billion stock buyback in April, which gave the stock a boost. The company said it repurchased about 8.5 million shares during the quarter.

In a press release, Narayen said:

“Adobe delivered record revenue of $6.62 billion in Q2 reflecting strong AI-driven demand across our customer groups and we are raising our full-year fiscal 2026 revenue and non-GAAP EPS targets on the strength of that performance.”