Can Rigetti Turn Purchase Orders Into Sustainable Revenue Growth?

Rigetti Computing RGTI is showing early signs of commercial traction as its quantum systems begin finding paying customers. In the third quarter of 2025, the company announced approximately $5.7 million in purchase orders for its Novera quantum processing units (QPUs) and related services, a tangible validation of its hardware capabilities after years of R&D investment. One system is going to an Asian tech manufacturer to build in-house quantum expertise and benchmark its technologies, while the other is headed to a California AI and applied physics startup for quantum hardware and error-correction research. These deployments, scheduled for the first half of 2026, mark Rigetti’s most concrete commercialization milestone to date and reflect growing institutional interest in building hands-on quantum capabilities.

Rigetti’s recent contracts and partnerships underscore a business that is finally aligning technological innovation with commercial opportunity. The $5.8 million Air Force Research Laboratory award, in collaboration with QphoX, positions Rigetti at the frontier of quantum networking, where linking superconducting and optical qubits could define the next phase of scalable quantum computing. Combined with the two Novera system orders, these wins show real market validation and growing institutional confidence in Rigetti’s in-house Fab-1 manufacturing and chip-packaging capabilities.

While quarterly revenues remain uneven, these developments signal a turning point, Rigetti’s technology is being adopted, not just tested. Still, investors should closely monitor the company’s revenue trajectory and backlog conversion rate, as sustained growth will hinge on whether these early contracts translate into repeat business and larger-scale system deployments in 2026 and beyond.

Peers Updates

D-Wave Quantum QBTS has officially transitioned its next-generation annealing platform, the Advantage2 system, from preview to full general availability, marking a major milestone for QBTS in its commercialization journey. The system delivers a 4,400+-qubit architecture with enhanced qubit connectivity, stronger coherence, and higher energy scale, now accessible to enterprise and research customers in over 40 countries via the company’s Leap cloud service. QBTS is also expanding its hybrid toolkits that integrate quantum annealing with classical compute capabilities, targeting broader adoption in logistics, AI optimization and financial modeling applications.

Quantum Computing Inc. QUBT has achieved a key milestone with the shipment of its first commercial entangled-photon source to a major research institution in South Korea, marking a commercial debut for QUBT’s telecom C-band-compatible photonic system designed for quantum networking and secure communications. Simultaneously, QUBT is advancing its photonic foundry in Tempe, AZ, and extending its reach into quantum sensing and cybersecurity, supported by early customer engagements. Though still in its nascent revenue phase, these moves underscore QCi’s shift from R&D to commercialization, signaling early but tangible momentum toward scalable product sales.

Rigetti’s Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

Shares of RGTI have gained 136.3% in the year-to-date period compared with the industry’s growth of 19.2%.

From a valuation standpoint, Rigetti trades at a price-to-book ratio of 21.13, above the industry average. RGTI carries a Value Score of F.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Rigetti’s 2025 earnings implies a significant 86.1% rise from the year-ago period.

The company currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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