Will RGTI's Tech Roadmap and Strong Cash Position Fuel Momentum Ahead?

Rigetti Computing’s RGTI third-quarter earnings depict a company that is still early in its commercial journey but is gaining traction in the right places. Revenue dipped year over year, yet management pointed to stronger demand for its on-premises quantum computers and a growing set of government and academic relationships. The two new Novera system orders and the three-year contract with the Air Force Research Laboratory add more predictability to future revenue, especially as both projects begin contributing through 2026. These wins also signal that Rigetti’s technology is being taken seriously by institutions that tend to evaluate vendors carefully before committing.

Investors are also paying attention to Rigetti’s balance sheet and its long-term roadmap, which together provide a sense of stability in a volatile sector. The company ended the third quarter with cash, cash equivalents and short-term available-for-sale investments of $446.9 million and no debt, a meaningful cushion that allows it to keep investing in R&D without constant fundraising pressure.

Rigetti’s updated technology roadmap outlines clear milestones, including a 150-plus qubit system expected in 2026 and a 1,000-plus qubit system targeted for 2027, with improved fidelity levels. These targets are ambitious, but they show a structured plan for scaling the platform. With both funding and technical direction in place, Rigetti enters the next phase with more clarity than it has had in years.

Peers Updates

D-Wave Quantum QBTS has moved its new Advantage2 annealing platform out of preview and into full commercial release, marking a meaningful step forward in its go-to-market progress. The system features an architecture with more than 4,400 qubits, improved connectivity, greater coherence and a higher energy scale. It is now available to enterprise and research users in over 40 countries through the Leap cloud platform. Alongside this rollout, the company is enhancing its hybrid toolsets that pair quantum annealing with classical computing, aiming to drive broader adoption across logistics, AI-driven optimization, and financial modeling use cases.

Quantum Computing Inc. QUBT shipped its first commercial entangled-photon source to a major research institution in South Korea, marking the commercial debut of its telecom C-band-compatible photonic system designed for quantum networking and secure communications. At the same time, the company is ramping up its photonic foundry operations in Tempe, AZ, and extending into quantum sensing and cybersecurity markets through early customer engagements. Though revenues remain early stage, these steps reflect QCi’s transition from pure R&D toward scaled-product commercialization.

Rigetti’s Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

Shares of RGTI have gained 66.8% in the year-to-date period compared with the industry’s growth of 2.1%.

From a valuation standpoint, Rigetti trades at a price-to-book ratio of 22.4, above the industry average. RGTI carries a Value Score of F.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Rigetti’s 2025 earnings implies a significant 75% 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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