Quantum computers use a concept called superposition to simulate many different solutions to a problem at the same time, so they can draw conclusions from large data sets much faster than traditional computers. Therefore, they have the potential to revolutionize industries such as science and cryptography.
Quantum computing stocks were red hot in 2025, as investors piled into the sector believing this revolutionary technology was close to commercialization. But even the best quantum methods still make too many mistakes in solving real-world problems, so the initial excitement of last year has evaporated.
Abandon Computing (RGTI 7.60%) is one of the leaders in the industry, and is already generating real money from its quantum applications. However, its stock is currently down more than 70% from last year’s peak, as investors appear to have suppressed the company’s growth potential. Unfortunately, it is still being sold at a premium price. This is why some losses of more than 80% are possible.
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A long way of doing business
The reliability of a quantum computer gate shows its importance in the real world. It measures the accuracy of each quantum operation, and higher readings mean fewer errors. Rigetti boasts the industry’s largest multichip quantum computer, the Cepheus-1-36Q. This computer has achieved a gate reliability of 99.5%, which means it makes one error in every 200 operations.
That’s pretty good by industry standards, but Cepheus-1-36Q still makes too many mistakes to reliably solve real-world problems. In fact, according to the technology investment firm Ark Investment Management, the best quantum computers will not be powerful enough or accurate enough to break the public algorithm known as “RSA-2048” until the year 2063, depending on the rate of development.
According to research by Ark, Google’s parent Alphabet reduces quantum error rates by 40% every four years. If this can be improved to a 40% reduction every two years, the company says quantum systems could be useful for cryptographic decryption by 2044.
Disrupting the traditional writing methods that protect modern digital devices can change the way we think about security, money and the internet in general, and create very important opportunities in the process.
Modern Change
(-7.60%) $-1.09
Current Price
$13.31
Important Information Points
Market Cap
$4.4B
Location of the Sun
$13.22 – $14.34
52wk Range
$6.86 – $58.15
Volume
740K
Avg Vol
30M
Gross Margin
-8613.15%
Rigetti’s revenue fell last year
Rigetti is in a good position because it has built the entire supply chain in-house. It has its own manufacturing facility, its own quantum programming language, and even its own cloud platform. Therefore, the company can bring new systems to market and monetize them faster than its competitors.
Rigetti makes money by selling on-premise quantum systems directly, and by leasing quantum computing capacity to customers through its cloud platform. However, the company generated $7.1 million in total revenue by 2025, which was a pittance for a $5.3 billion company. To make matters worse, that was 34% decrease compared to 2024, when the tax comes in at $10.8 million.
Creating quantum systems is a very expensive exercise. Rigetti had $86.7 million in total operating expenses last year, with $61.3 million going to research and development alone. Due to the company’s small earnings, it resulted in a huge loss of 216.2 million dollars according to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).
Even after including one-time and non-cash expenses, Rigetti is still generating an adjusted loss (non-GAAP) of $50.5 million in 2025. Although the company ended the year with $589.8 in cash and equivalents, it will have to earn a lot more money in the future, or it will have to reduce its costs significantly.
Why Rigetti stock could lose 80% of its current value
Despite the 72% decline in Rigetti’s stock year-to-date, it is still trading at a price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 703, which is not sustainable for a long time. For context, Nvidia The stock trades at a P/S ratio of just 19.9, and is one of the most valuable companies in the world.
Rigetti’s price even does Palantir Technologies looks cheap, even though Palantir is expensive on its own with a P/S ratio of 92.1.
RGTI PS ratio data by YCharts.
Rigetti’s stock would have to drop another 87% to match Palantir’s value, still it wouldn’t be cheap at the time, especially as the company’s revenue has been declining over the past year.
This coming December, Rigetti plans to use a new quantum method with a gate reliability of 99.7%. The company recently achieved 99.9% gate reliability when testing a new model, but executives say it will be three years before similar results can be replicated in commercial settings. These are positive developments, but it is clear that Rigetti will not generate meaningful revenue (relative to its market) in the foreseeable future. So I think the downside is the path of least resistance for its stock.
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