The USC-Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center (QCC) is a joint scientific research effort between Lockheed Martin Corporation and the University of Southern California (USC). The QCC is housed at the Information Sciences Institute (ISI), a computer science and engineering research unit of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, and is jointly operated by ISI and Lockheed Martin.
USC faculty, ISI researchers and students are performing basic and applied research into quantum computing, and are collaborating with researchers around the world. The QCC uses a D-Wave Two quantum annealing system, manufactured by D-Wave Systems, Inc.[1][2] The QCC is the first organization outside of D-Wave to operate the system.[3] The second system is installed at NASA Ames Research Center,[4] and is operated jointly by NASA and Google.[5][6] The systems must be kept extremely cold and electromagnetically shielded to operate with the longest possible coherence time.