D-Wave and Rigetti Are Down Big This Year. Their Q3 Reports Must Answer the Cash Burn Question
D-Wave and Rigetti Are Down Big This Year. Their Q3 Reports Must Answer the Cash Burn Question
Trey ThoelckeMon, November 9, 2026 at 1:06 PM UTC
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sbayram / Getty Images (sbayram / Getty Images)Quick Read -
D-Wave and Rigetti report Tuesday after falling 62% and 50% this year, and each must prove revenue growth can justify heavy cash burn.
D-Wave's $3 million second-quarter revenue missed estimates by 24%, so management's guidance of a modest rise hinges on Q4 system shipments.
IonQ's $174 million third-quarter revenue tops the 2026 revenue consensus for D-Wave and Rigetti combined, exposing a vast scale gap.
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Shares of D-Wave Quantum (NASDAQ:QBTS) are down 62.0% year to date, and Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ:RGTI) has lost 50.2%. Both report Tuesday, and each has to show that revenue growth can justify its cash burn.
D-Wave Quantum reports before the market opens on November 10 and holds a webcast at 8:00 a.m. ET. Rigetti Computing reports after the close on November 10 and holds its call at 5:00 p.m. ET. In Monday premarket trading, D-Wave stood at $10.68 and Rigetti at $11.58. Over the past year they're down 63.6% and 64.5%, respectively.
Consensus Sets Up a Two-Report Day
Metric
D-Wave
Rigetti
Q3 2026 EPS consensus
Loss of $0.0988
Loss of $0.0513
Q3 2025 EPS
Loss of $0.05
Loss of $0.03
Q3 2026 revenue consensus
$4,337,120
$3,675,950
Implied YoY revenue growth
16.0%
88.8%
Revenue analysts
16
12
FY2026 EPS consensus
Loss of $0.2971
Loss of $0.1870
FY2026 revenue consensus
$42,471,240
$23,259,000
Implied FY revenue growth
72.7%
228.1%
D-Wave Must Turn Record Bookings Into Revenue
Second-quarter revenue of $3.08 million missed expectations by 23.6%. First-half bookings rose to $35.5 million, and backlog reached $40.7 million. Management guided for third-quarter revenue "up modestly" from Q2. It expects most of the year's revenue in Q4, when two annealing systems ship.
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Cash and investments fell to $546.2 million, mostly because of the roughly $250 million Quantum Circuits acquisition. The adjusted EBITDA loss grew to $37.1 million. D-Wave Quantum's first-quarter release said, "D-Wave's combination of commercial proof, technical breadth, and a differentiated path to gate-model error correction and scaling will be increasingly prominent as this market matures." IonQ (NYSE:IONQ) CEO Niccolo De Masi said IonQ "extended our multi-year collaboration with D-Wave" at SkyWater. Monitor new deals, operating expenses, and whether the 17-qubit gate-model system remains on schedule for this year.
Rigetti's Revenue Beats Face a Lumpy Quarter
Rigetti missed revenue estimates in all four 2025 quarters. It then exceeded consensus with $5.14 million in Q2 2026, up 185.3% year over year. Management expects to recognize the $8.4 million C-DAC system order in Q4. Rigetti Computing's Q2 release said its collaboration with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center "reflects growing demand for our approach."
RGTI Earnings Explorer — 24/7 Wall St.
Liquidity came to $541.3 million with no debt, while capital spending rose to $12.0 million. Look for the targeted 99.5% two-qubit fidelity and any progress on the Commerce letter of intent for up to $100 million. That deal would require issuing equity.
IonQ Shows How Wide the Scale Gap Has Grown
De Masi reported IonQ third-quarter revenue of $173.8 million. That one quarter exceeds the full-year 2026 revenue consensus for D-Wave and Rigetti combined. Jensen Huang of Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) said, "Quantum computer is not the next big thing, but it is a big thing." Jordi Visser said on The Pomp Podcast that "Quantum is a hardware issue." Steve Grasso said on CNBC's Fast Money that the rest of the group is "solving it, not the whole quantum space. And they burn a ton of cash." (Names like these belong in the speculative segment of a portfolio, and we laid out the sizing and exit rules for that segment in a free guide here: Small Stakes, Big Swings.)
What Counts as a Win Tuesday
D-Wave needs bookings beyond the Florida Atlantic University deal and confirmation that both Q4 system shipments are still on track. Rigetti needs to stay on its C-DAC timeline and hold operating cash outflow close to Q2's $15.78 million. One test is simple to check: D-Wave's revenue has to come in above $3.08 million, or management's own guidance falls short.
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Source: “AOL Money”
