Quantum annealing - a finite temperature version of the quantum
adiabatic algorithm - combines the classical technology of slow thermal
cooling with quantum mechanical tunneling, to try bring a physical
system faster towards its ground state. The Canadian company D-Wave
systems has recently built and sold programmable devices that are
designed to use this effect to find solutions to hard
optimization problems. I will present results of experiments designed to
shed light on crucial questions about these controversial devices: are
they quantum or classical? And are they faster than classical devices?