Rigetti Computing, Inc. (NASDAQ:RGTI) shares are trading higher on Wednesday.
The firm released its second-quarter results after Tuesday’s closing bell, with quarterly losses of 13 cents per share, which missed the analyst consensus estimate for losses of 6 cents.
Quarterly revenue came in at $1.8 million, which missed the analyst consensus estimate of $1.88 million and is down from revenue of $3.086 million from the same period last year.
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Despite the miss, Wall Street analysts maintained bullish outlooks, pointing to progress on Rigetti’s technology roadmap.
Needham: Scaling Progress Strengthens Confidence
Analyst N. Quinn Bolton reiterated the Buy rating on the stock, with a price forecast of $18.
Bolton said Rigetti met its mid-year goal with a four-chiplet, 36-qubit Cepheus-1-36Q QPU reaching 99.5% median two-qubit fidelity. He added that this strengthens management’s confidence in delivering a >100-qubit system with 99.5% median two-gate fidelity by year-end. He also noted quantum advantage remains about four years away and will require meeting four key specifications.
Rigetti, which went public in February 2022 as the second pure-play quantum firm, is a full-stack pioneer with proprietary quantum-classical infrastructure and is well-positioned to benefit as the industry advances in the near and long term.
Bolton added that its approach, built on scalable multi-chip processors designed, manufactured and housed at Fab-1, lets commercial and government customers explore applications while the company and peers work toward fully fault-tolerant systems.
According to the analyst, existing partnerships and customer ties should lead to follow-on R&D agreements and larger opportunities as scaling continues.
Analysts expect that from 2026 onward, the company will raise its qubit count to the hundreds and improve median two-qubit gate fidelity to 99.9%. They also anticipate the introduction of qLDPC-based quantum error correction.
Benchmark: Roadmap to 1,000 Qubits
Analyst David Williams reiterated the Buy rating, raising the price forecast to $20 from $14.
Williams said Rigetti remains on track to deliver a 100-qubit, multi-chiplet QPU with 99.5% two-qubit gate fidelity by year-end, a key step toward quantum advantage. He noted the newly released Cepheus-1 met that fidelity goal while cutting error rates, debuting what he views as the industry’s largest multi-chip processor for quantum computing and reinforcing the scalability of Rigetti’s architecture.
He added that these gains firm up the roadmap to a 1,000+-qubit system with 99.9% fidelity, built-in error correction, and sub-50 ns gate times needed for advantage.
While management still sees a three-to-four-year timeline to reach that threshold, the analyst expects meaningful revenue opportunities well before then.
Williams also highlighted that Rigetti increased cash by $350 million to about $570 million during the period, which he believes is sufficient to fund continued investment through commercialization.
Management said the long-term objective over the next three to four years is a 1,000-qubit system targeting 99.9% fidelity, built-in error correction, and sub-50 ns gates, enabled by advances in cabling, cryogenics, and chiplet density.
They also argued the chiplet architecture is the only practical route to scale and noted strong patent protection.
Price Action: RGTI shares are trading higher by 1.31% to $16.41 at last check Wednesday.
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