Google Inc. plans to help create a new laboratory to study quantum computing, a high-profile endorsement of the esoteric technology—and a Canadian company that has been pursuing it since 1999.

An unusual supercooled machine built by D-Wave Systems Inc., of Vancouver, British Columbia, will be installed at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Ames Research Center, near Google's campus in Mountain View, Calif. It will be operated by the nonprofit Universities Space Research Association.

The arrangement is designed to allow researchers from Google as well as other institutions try out the system for solving different kinds of computing problems.

Quantum computers take their name from quantum mechanics, the branch of physics associated with the behavior of matter at the scale of atoms or subatomic particles. Researchers have long theorized that machines that exploit those properties could be much faster than conventional computers.

Many companies, including International Business Machines Corp. and Microsoft Corp., have conducted quantum-computing research. D-Wave, whose approach differs from most others in the field, is the only one to have sold any hardware. Lockheed Martin Corp. in 2010 bought the company's first machine, which was installed near Los Angeles in a research center affiliated with the University of Southern California.