Overview
- Postquant Labs opened Quip Network, a testnet that lets participants use quantum computers or standard CPUs and GPUs to compete on math tasks for rewards.
- Instead of Bitcoin-style hashing, the system uses Ising model optimization, which maps a problem to an energy function and asks miners to find the lowest‑energy arrangement.
- D-Wave is advising the project and providing access to its Advantage2 annealing processor through its Leap cloud service, yet it is not a partner or investor.
- Postquant says early internal tests showed the D-Wave annealer beating 80 H100 GPUs and 480 CPU cores on solution quality, speed, and energy use for select problems, though no independent checks exist yet.
- The launch comes as Google’s recent research warned that future gate‑model quantum machines could threaten today’s cryptography, while D-Wave’s annealers are specialized for optimization and cannot run encryption‑breaking algorithms like Shor’s.