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RGTI Sees Solid Government Deals, Weak Commercial Demand: How to Play

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Key Takeaways

  • Rigetti's revenue remains small and uneven, driven mainly by government and research contracts.
  • RGTI is expanding with new systems and a 108-qubit launch, boosting tech credibility and adoption.
  • Commercial demand lags as enterprise use stays limited and profitability remains distant.

Rigetti Computing (RGTI - Free Report) exited fourth-quarter 2025 with continued progress in its quantum technology roadmap, but its commercial traction remains largely concentrated in government and research-led demand. The company generated $1.9 million in quarterly revenue while reporting a $22.6 million operating loss, highlighting the early-stage and uneven nature of monetization in quantum computing. Revenue continues to be driven by the timing of system deliveries and contracts, reinforcing that the business is still far from achieving consistent, broad-based commercial adoption.

Notably, Rigetti is seeing increasing momentum from government-backed deals, including an $8.4 million order from India’s Centre for Development of Advanced Computing for a 108-qubit on-premises system, alongside additional Novera system orders and international research engagements. However, meaningful enterprise or commercial demand remains limited, with most customers still in experimentation and development phases. While the company continues to advance system performance and expand its global footprint, the widening gap between technological progress and commercial scalability remains a key factor for investors to monitor.

Competition across the quantum computing landscape is intensifying, adding further complexity to Rigetti’s investment case. IonQ (IONQ - Free Report) has strengthened its position with accelerating commercial traction and strong financial momentum, generating $130 million in 2025 revenue. Meanwhile, D-Wave Quantum (QBTS - Free Report) continues to emphasize near-term commercialization through its quantum annealing approach, securing enterprise deals, expanding system deployments and enhancing hybrid quantum-classical capabilities while pursuing acquisitions to broaden its technology stack. At the same time, International Business Machines (IBM - Free Report) remains a dominant force in the space, leveraging its deep research expertise, advanced superconducting systems and integrated ecosystem to push scalability, roadmap execution and early enterprise engagement.

RGTI Stock’s Price Performance

In the year-to-date period, RGTI shares have plunged 33.8%, reflecting continued volatility across the quantum computing space. Peer performance has also been weak, with IONQ down 35.9% and QBTS emerging as the worst performer, plummeting 45.5%. In comparison, IBM has been relatively resilient, declining 22.1%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Internet-Software industry has slipped 17.8%, indicating that Rigetti has underperformed the broader tech segment despite sector-wide pressure.

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Reasons Why RGTI May Still Be a Hold

Expanding On-Premise Deployments Signal Early Adoption: Rigetti continues to build early commercial traction through on-premise quantum system deployments, primarily with government and research institutions. The company’s Novera systems remain a key entry point, with shipments tied to previously announced orders expected to support near-term revenue growth. These systems are upgradeable, positioning Rigetti to benefit from follow-on demand as customers scale their quantum capabilities over time.

Recent developments further reinforce this trend. Rigetti delivered a 9-qubit Novera QPU to the University of Saskatchewan, marking another step in expanding its academic and research footprint. While deal sizes remain modest, growing international adoption, spanning North America, Asia and Europe, highlights increasing interest in owning quantum infrastructure rather than relying solely on cloud access.

108-Qubit Launch Strengthens Product Credibility: Recently, RGTI's general availability of its 108-qubit system, Cepheus-1-108Q, in April 2026, marks a meaningful milestone in its hardware roadmap. Now accessible via Rigetti Quantum Cloud Services and Amazon Braket, the system represents the company’s highest qubit-count offering and the industry’s largest modular quantum system built on a chiplet-based architecture.

Although current performance levels (around 99.1% two-qubit fidelity and approximately 60 ns gate speeds) still leave room for improvement, the launch reflects rising customer interest and validates Rigetti’s ability to deliver increasingly complex systems. Importantly, management plans to enhance performance through 2026, suggesting that the current release is part of an iterative scaling strategy rather than a final-state product.

Chiplet Strategy and Global Investments Support Scaling Vision: Rigetti’s chiplet-based architecture remains central to its long-term strategy of scaling quantum systems efficiently. By linking smaller qubit modules instead of relying on monolithic designs, the company aims to improve manufacturing yields while enabling higher qubit counts, a critical requirement for reaching quantum advantage.

Supporting this vision, Rigetti announced plans to invest up to $100 million in the U.K. to accelerate development and target a 1,000+ qubit system within the next three to four years. This aligns with increasing government-backed funding globally and positions Rigetti to benefit from national quantum initiatives. Combined with ongoing architectural improvements, the company is reinforcing its pathway toward larger, more commercially viable systems, even as near-term monetization remains limited.

RGTI’s Sales & EPS Growth

In 2026, Rigetti is expected to experience a 254.7% improvement in revenues. On the profitability front, earnings per share are expected to remain negative but increasing 73.4% year over year.

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RGTI’s Key Challenge

Limited Commercial Adoption Keeps Revenue Uncertain: Despite steady technological progress, Rigetti continues to face a key challenge in translating innovation into meaningful commercial revenue. The company generated just $1.9 million in fourth-quarter 2025 revenue while reporting a $22.6 million operating loss, underscoring the early-stage and uneven nature of demand. Management noted that most revenue is still driven by government and research contracts, with limited enterprise adoption. With true quantum advantage estimated to be around three years away and revenue tied to deals like the Novera orders and government contracts, scalability remains constrained and profitability distant.

RGTI’s Shares Look Overvalued

Rigetti stock is not so cheap, as suggested by the Value Score of F.

Rigetti is currently trading at a price-to-book (P/B) ratio of 8.93X, which is higher than the industry average of 4.5X.

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How to Approach RGTI Stock

Rigetti remains one of the more compelling yet higher-risk plays in the quantum computing space, particularly as its growth is increasingly tied to government and research-driven demand rather than broad commercial adoption. The company continues to make steady progress on its technology roadmap, including advances in system scale, fidelity and its chiplet-based architecture, while also expanding deployments through on-premises systems for national labs and institutions. These developments reinforce Rigetti’s credibility as a serious hardware contender, but also highlight that its current traction is concentrated in early-stage, non-commercial segments of the market.

At the same time, the financial profile reflects the challenges of operating in a pre-commercial industry. Revenue remains modest and uneven, while operating losses stay elevated due to ongoing R&D investments. With a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), the stock appears better suited for patient investors willing to wait for broader commercialization. The key question remains whether Rigetti can transition from government-led demand to meaningful enterprise adoption over time, with sustained system deployments and progress toward quantum advantage likely to be critical drivers of long-term upside. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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