Rising Trends in Quantum Computing: Investing in Underdogs

The quantum-computing sector is heating up, with increasing competition and growing uncertainty. Smaller companies like Rigetti Computing stay undeterred in their ambitious pursuits, causing a stir on Wall Street. Investors are now faced with a critical choice: hedge their bets or fully commit to these underdogs.

Rigetti’s fourth-quarter earnings report highlighted the challenges faced by quantum pure plays. The company reported revenue of $2.27 million for the December quarter, a significant drop from $3.38 million the prior year, while its operating loss increased to $18.5 million from $17.2 million in 2023.

Despite an early decline in premarket trading, Rigetti shares surged by 9.1% on Thursday, outperforming the S&P 500, which fell by 0.7%, and the tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite, which decreased by 0.9%.

As Rigetti’s stock continued to rise, D-Wave Quantum recovered from earlier losses, increasing by 0.7%. Still, Quantum Computing and IonQ remained in negative territory, declining by 1.6% and 2.9%, respectively.

Rigetti became the second quantum pure play to go public in February 2022, after IonQ in 2021. The company launched its first commercially available quantum processing unit, the Novera QPU, at the end of 2023.