NEW YORK, March 6, 2026, 08:44 EST
Rigetti Computing shares fell 4.4% in premarket trading on Friday after the quantum-computing company reported quarterly revenue below Wall Street estimates and a wider operating loss. The stock was indicated at $16.97 before the open, according to LSEG data. 1
The move lands in a week when investors are parsing earnings across listed quantum specialists, including IonQ and D-Wave Quantum, for signs that research progress is turning into repeatable sales. The sector has drawn sharp swings before as traders wrestle with thin revenue, big valuations and long development timelines. 2
Rigetti’s own filings show why the scrutiny is so intense. The company said 90.2% of 2025 sales came from government entities, and warned that changes or delays in public-sector contracting could materially affect results. 3
Rigetti said fourth-quarter revenue was $1.9 million, down from $2.3 million a year earlier, while operating loss widened to $22.6 million. Full-year revenue was $7.1 million, GAAP net loss was $216.2 million, and the company ended 2025 with $589.8 million in cash, cash equivalents and available-for-sale investments.
Chief Executive Subodh Kulkarni said demand for on-premises quantum systems from government and research institutions “continues to grow.” The company pointed to an $8.4 million order from India’s C-DAC for a 108-qubit machine, two previously disclosed Novera system orders worth about $5.7 million, and a Japanese order for a Novera QPU, or quantum processing unit, expected to ship in April.
Rigetti is also asking investors to keep watching its 108-qubit system. A qubit is the quantum version of a bit, and Kulkarni told analysts the machine was still targeted for deployment “by the end of March,” with two-qubit gate fidelity — a measure of how accurately paired quantum operations run — expected at about 99.5% median. 4
On the earnings call, Kulkarni said the company had “intentionally delayed” the system after seeing interactions between tunable couplers at that scale, but added Rigetti had addressed the issue and felt good about deploying it soon. 5
Chief Financial Officer Jeff Bertelsen said “a little less than half” of the $5.7 million Novera sales should be recognized in the first quarter, with the balance later in 2026. He said the C-DAC system would be booked after installation and validation testing, rather than spread across several quarters. 5
That leaves Rigetti competing with IonQ and D-Wave Quantum in a small public field where every update gets read for commercial traction, not just technical progress. Recent coverage of the group shows investors moving fast when the numbers disappoint. 2
The risk is fairly plain. Rigetti has already pushed general availability of its 108-qubit Cepheus-1-108Q system to around the end of the first quarter of 2026, and the company has said quarterly revenue can swing with the timing of deliveries and government contract activity. Another slip, or slower recognition of booked orders, would leave investors waiting longer for meaningful sales growth. 6
Still, management argues the balance sheet buys time. Kulkarni said Rigetti believes it is roughly three years from “quantum advantage” — beating classical systems on practical workloads — and is aiming for a system with more than 150 qubits around December 2026 and more than 1,000 qubits by or around 2027. 5
