Rigetti Computing (RGTI) was in focus on Tuesday as Wedbush Securities upped its price target on the quantum computing company after it received an $8.4M order for a 108-qubit computer.
Shares were little changed in premarket trading.
“We would note that four months ago, RGTI announced purchase orders totaling $5.7M for two of its 9-qubit Novera systems to be delivered in 1H’26,” Wedbush analyst Antoine Legault wrote in a note to clients. “Much like this previous announcement, we see today’s news as highlighting the growing demand for on-premises quantum computers as national governments and scientific institutions (and we believe eventually commercial customers) invest in quantum computers as part of their hybrid classical-quantum compute infrastructure. Moreover, with quantum still an area defined by significant uncertainty around technology leadership and direction, we view POs as a signal that consumers with significant technical expertise are making a bet around technology direction (in this case superconducting and RGTI).”
Legault, who reiterated his Outperform rating on Rigetti and upped his price target to $40 from $35, said that sales of entire quantum systems are the “natural evolution” of the space. As such, he expects more of Rigetti’s customers and partners to make similar purchases, “particularly as the systems scale in qubit count, which we believe RGTI has demonstrated it can achieve, and gate fidelities improve and eventually reach 99.9%+.”