EVP of Research & Development Bill  Blake at D-Wave  Portrait

Bill Blake

EVP of Research & Development

Lonergan Partners is pleased to announce that Bill Blake has been named Executive Vice President of R&D at D-Wave Systems Inc. The search was led by Dotty Schaffer.

About Bill

Prior to D-Wave, Bill was CTO of Cray Inc., responsible for defining Cray’s next generation of supercomputers and solutions including major initiatives in exascale computing and the fusion of supercomputing and large-scale data analytics. He also served on Cray’s Board of Directors and chaired the Technology Strategy Advisory Committee.

Until January 2011, Bill was GM of Parallel Computing Platforms in Microsoft’s Technical Computing group. Prior to its acquisition by Microsoft, he was President and CEOof Interactive Supercomputing, Inc. Prior to Interactive Supercomputing Inc., he served as SVP of Product Development of Netezza Corporation. Netezza was acquired by IBM in 2010.

Before Netezza he held key management positions with Digital Equipment Corporation and Compaq Computer Corporation in compiler and parallel software development, including his role as VP proposing and managing the market leading High Performance Technical Computing group. He is a current member of external advisory boards at Sandia National Laboratories and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Boston CommonAngels.

Bill holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and is a member of IEEE and ACM.

About D-Wave

Founded in 1999, D-Wave Systems is the first commercial quantum computing company. Its mission is to integrate new discoveries in physics, engineering, manufacturing, and computer science into breakthrough approaches to computation to help solve some of the world’s most complex challenges. The company’s flagship product, the 512-qubit D-Wave Two™ computer, is built around a novel type of superconducting processor that uses quantum mechanics to massively accelerate computation. On February 6, 2014, D-Wave was featured on the cover of Time Magazine. Read here for a summary of the article.

Placement Update

On March 31, 2015, Bill Blake suffered a heart attack and passed away. D-Wave CEO Vern Brownell said on the company website: “Though only with D-Wave for a short time — Bill joined us in September of 2014 — he made a significant and incredibly positive impact on both the future of D-Wave’s products and the people at our company. Responsible for processor development, hardware engineering and software design, he not only drove advancements for our technology, but was an intelligent and caring individual who had an immense passion for technology…Bill will be missed by many, and will be remembered both for the contributions he made to the advancement of technology and to the impact he made personally to those who new him.”

Vern Brownell Portrait

Bill’s expertise and experience in developing breakthrough technologies that solve incredibly difficult problems is a perfect fit for D-Wave’s mission. The products he has helped create have driven entirely new markets and redefined how problems of massive scale are addressed. Bill has also demonstrated an outstanding ability to lead teams of engineers and scientists to the highest levels of performance, and his broad industry knowledge will be a tremendous asset as he joins D-Wave’s executive management team.

Vern Brownell, CEO, D-Wave Systems
Bill Blake Portrait

What D-Wave has achieved in terms of creating the first scalable quantum computer is awe-inspiring. It has required huge advances in diverse disciplines including physics, engineering, manufacturing, and computer science. I am excited to join the world-class D-Wave team as they continue to lead the development of quantum computers that will redefine how the world’s hardest problems are solved and will help solve currently intractable problems that affect people and organizations today.

Bill Blake, EVP of R&D, D-Wave Systems
Dotty Schaffer Portrait

Throughout his career, Bill Blake has been at the forefront in developing disruptive technology. He was chosen for this role because of his proven leadership and vast experience in High Performance Computing. We believe D-Wave and quantum computing will change the world and find answers to those big questions that we thought were unanswerable.

Dotty Schaffer, Partner, Lonergan Partners