Pure-play quantum computing stocks surged after the U.S. Department of Commerce announced letters of intent totaling approximately $2.013 billion in proposed CHIPS and Science Act incentives for nine quantum-related companies.
Seven of those recipients were quantum-computing developers, with D-Wave Quantum (NYSE: QBTS) and Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ: RGTI) each receiving up to $100 million in proposed federal funding.
Following the announcement, shares of QBTS surged 14.6% while RGTI jumped 22.6%, compared with the S&P 500’s 1% gain over the same period.
D-Wave’s federal funding supports its strategy of combining established annealing systems with emerging gate-model quantum capabilities, giving the company multiple technology pathways to pursue commercial opportunities.
What sets D-Wave apart from many quantum peers is its focus on commercial deployment today, including a recently secured $10 million, two-year quantum-computing-as-a-service agreement with a Fortune 100 customer.
D-Wave’s annealing systems are already being applied to complex optimization challenges across logistics, manufacturing, scheduling, and supply-chain management, offering a clearer path to near-term revenue than competitors focused primarily on long-term research.
Rigetti’s federal funding is aimed at accelerating research and development to address key technical challenges in scaling and advancing superconducting quantum computers toward utility-scale capabilities.
Rigetti reported first-quarter revenues that nearly tripled year over year to $4.4 million, while its 108-qubit Cepheus system became available through major cloud platforms during the period.
Based on price targets from 13 analysts, QBTS carries an average implied upside of 32.39% from its last closing price, compared with a 25.91% implied upside for RGTI based on targets from 10 analysts.
Valuation remains a concern for both stocks, with QBTS trading at 178.18 times forward 12-month price-to-sales, above its one-year median of 171.20 times, while RGTI trades at 248.0 times, below its one-year median of 259.72 times.
Both figures dwarf the Zacks Computer and Technology sector’s forward price-to-sales multiple of 6.81 times, and both companies currently hold a Value Score of F.
QBTS holds a Zacks Rank of 3 (Hold) while RGTI carries a Zacks Rank of 4 (Sell), with analysts suggesting investors may consider holding QBTS while reducing or avoiding exposure to RGTI at current levels.
Rigetti’s long-term potential in gate-model quantum computing remains compelling, but its commercial success is more dependent on future technological breakthroughs than D-Wave’s existing revenue-generating operations.
