Yes, of course they did what D-wave calls quantum annealing. As you say, that's all the D-Wave machines can do. The D-Wave executive's claim that the problems

Yes, of course they did what D-wave calls quantum annealing. As you say, that's all the D-Wave machines can do. The D-Wave executive's claim that the problems used in the study are "not at all the right choice for probing a quantum speedup" is in reference to the specific subtypes of quantum annealing problems that this study looked at, not whether they were doing quantum annealing at all.