Patent 9152746 was granted and assigned to Microsoft on October, 2015 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A quantum annealer simulator approximates unitary quantum dynamics of a quantum annealer on a non-quantum computing device such as a conventional computing device. The quantum annealer simulator may utilize algorithms that may efficiently approximate unitary time evolution of a quantum system, where the quantum system corresponds to a problem for which an optimized solution is sought.