IonQ (IONQ), D-Wave Quantum (QBTS), and Rigetti Computing (RGTI) were in focus on Tuesday as Jefferies started coverage on the quantum computing space.
The firm put Buy ratings on IonQ and D-Wave Quantum and a Hold rating on Rigetti. The price targets are $100, $45, and $30, respectively.
Jefferies analyst Kevin Garrigan said IonQ is benefiting from ecosystem tailwinds that are boost adoption. “Its trapped‑ion architecture differentiates on coherence, fidelity, and native all‑to‑all connectivity, while the roadmap pivots to fault‑tolerance: EQC‑integrated ~256 qubits (2026), ~10k physical / ~800 logical (2027), and ~2M physical / ~80k logical with <1e‑12 logical error (2030),” Garrigan wrote. “Platform scope is widening beyond compute via networking and sensing with ground/ space integrations. Government and enterprise partnerships validate readiness and accelerate commercialization. We see upside as IonQ executes, expands partnerships/system sales, and builds the quantum ecosystem.”
D‑Wave is seen as also benefiting from ecosystem tailwinds and usage increase across quantum architectures, Garrigan said.
“With Advantage2 commercially available via Leap, these catalysts translate into customer education, bigger experimentation budgets, and pilots that feed the annealing funnel,” Garrigan wrote. “The company’s two‑pronged roadmap, consisting of annealing for optimization and gate‑model for simulation/chemistry/linear algebra, leverages a shared superconducting stack and targets ~100,000 annealing qubits via multi‑chip fabrics, while fluxonium + cryo‑control build toward logical qubits over 5–10 years. A full‑stack platform lowers adoption friction and converts pilots to production. Commercial stickiness is evidenced by 100+ organizations running production workloads across manufacturing, logistics, public safety, telecom, pharma, and U.S. mission applications. Financially, D‑Wave enters C26 with $836.2M cash, ~$32M debt, and a cleaned‑up equity stack post warrant redemption, enabling disciplined investment.”
Rigetti is seen as benefiting from the same quantum tailwinds, the stock is “balanced” based on execution and revenue-mix risks, Garrigan explained.
“Industry catalysts should lift adoption, while Rigetti’s chiplet‑based architecture has shown promising scalability,” he wrote in a note to clients. “Despite recent technical progress, credibility from past roadmap slips require sustained delivery; revenue remains heavily government‑dependent, tempering near‑term visibility. A debt‑free balance sheet and ~$600M liquidity fund the roadmap and [quantum computing-as-a-service] scale‑up, positioning Rigetti to benefit as pilots convert to repeatable [quantum computing-as-a-service] and capacity reservations, yet we see higher risk versus peers, warranting a Hold.”