NTT DOCOMO runs a second production application on D-Wave, cutting peak location-registration signals 65%

D-Wave Quantum/Advantage2

NTT DOCOMO, Japan's largest mobile operator, put a second application built on D-Wave's hybrid quantum annealing technology into production. It reorganises how base stations are grouped into tracking areas, the zones phones report their location to. Bigger zones mean fewer location updates but more paging to find a phone; the optimisation balances the two.

• The run covered 333 base stations, nine tracking areas and three tracking-area lists, and takes about five minutes.
• Location-registration signals fell 65.3% at the daily peak and paging signals fell 7.0%.
• DOCOMO's first D-Wave application reduced paging within tracking areas; this one tackles the wider network layout.
• D-Wave's hybrid solvers split work between classical computers and the annealer, so the gain is not attributed to quantum hardware alone.