Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ: RGTI) has become one of 2025’s wildest stories on the Nasdaq. The quantum computing stock has swung from massive gains to brutal drawdowns in a matter of weeks, driven by a mix of earnings surprises, government-technology headlines and speculative enthusiasm around quantum computing.
As of the close on December 5, 2025, RGTI stock was trading around $28.11, down about 6.5% on the day from a prior close of $30.06, on roughly 50.9 million shares of volume — below its already-elevated average daily volume of about 72 million shares. [1]
Below is a detailed look at the latest news, Q3 earnings, strategic deals, analyst forecasts and key risks around RGTI stock as of December 6, 2025.
1. RGTI Stock Price: From Moonshot to Roller Coaster
RGTI’s recent trading action has been extreme, even by high-growth tech standards:
- Down 42% in November: Rigetti’s shares plunged 42.2% in November 2025, following a sharply negative reaction to its Q3 2025 earnings report, which showed falling revenue and a massive GAAP net loss. [2]
- Still up over 700% in 12 months: Even after that selloff, the stock remains up roughly 729% over the last 12 months, highlighting how violently sentiment has swung from euphoria to fear and back. [3]
- Whiplash this week: After the November decline, RGTI surged about 15% on Thursday, December 4, as investors reacted to remarks from Nobel laureate John Martinis about U.S.–China quantum competition (more on that below), before giving back 6.5% on Friday, December 5. [4]
MarketBeat data shows RGTI with a market capitalization of about $9.3 billion, a negative P/E ratio of -21.6 and a beta of 1.68, underscoring its high volatility relative to the broader market. [5]
For context, TradingView/GuruFocus notes that Rigetti has generated roughly $7.5 million in revenue over the past 12 months while posting about $350 million in losses, raising serious questions about how much future success investors have already priced in. [6]
2. What Just Happened: Government Signals and Quantum Hype
The latest leg in RGTI’s roller coaster has been driven by geopolitics and national security, not just fundamentals.
Nobel laureate warns the U.S. is “nanoseconds ahead” of China
In early December, Nobel Prize–winning physicist John Martinis told Bloomberg that China has “caught up quickly” in the race for quantum computing and that the U.S. may now be only “nanoseconds” ahead. [7]
He also said the White House is now shifting strategic focus from AI to quantum, suggesting that U.S. policymakers increasingly view quantum computing as a national security priority. [8]
Investors interpreted these remarks as a potential signal that:
- The U.S. government could expand funding for domestic quantum players, and
- Companies like Rigetti might benefit from future contracts or direct support.
TradingView’s summary noted that RGTI shares jumped around 15% in a single session on these comments, driven largely by speculation that U.S. government backing could turbocharge Rigetti’s revenue and de-risk its long-term business. [9]
However, both GuruFocus (via TradingView) and Motley Fool commentary emphasize that this is speculation, not a confirmed policy move. They also stress that Rigetti’s valuation — a multi‑billion‑dollar market cap on single‑digit millions of annual revenue and steep losses — remains difficult to justify without dramatic future growth. [10]
3. Q3 2025 Earnings: Big Non‑Cash Hit, Smaller Underlying Loss
Rigetti’s Q3 2025 results, covering the quarter ended September 30, are central to understanding both the November plunge and current analyst debate.
From the company’s Q3 financials (via GlobeNewswire/InvestingNews): [11]
- Revenue:
- Q3 2025 revenue: $1.95 million
- Q3 2024 revenue: $2.38 million
- Year‑over‑year decline: about 18%
- Gross profit:
- Gross profit: $0.40 million, implying relatively modest gross margins for a high‑R&D tech firm.
- Operating loss:
- Operating expenses: about $21.0 million (driven largely by R&D)
- Loss from operations: $20.55 million
- GAAP vs non‑GAAP net loss:
- GAAP net loss: $200.97 million for Q3, vs. $14.83 million a year earlier
- Non‑GAAP net loss (excluding large warrant & earn‑out revaluation plus stock‑based comp): $10.65 million, or -$0.03 per share
TipRanks and MarketBeat both note that the non‑GAAP EPS loss of -$0.03 beat Wall Street’s -$0.05 consensus, while revenue of about $1.94–$1.95 million fell short of an expected $2.17 million. [12]
The huge GAAP loss was dominated by non‑cash accounting charges, including:
- A $181.96 million loss from changes in the fair value of derivative warrant liabilities
- A $4.06 million loss from changes in earn‑out liabilities
These are tied to prior financing structures and stock‑price moves rather than the underlying operations. [13]
Cash runway looks strong (for now)
On the balance sheet, Rigetti reported roughly: [14]
- $26.1 million in cash and cash equivalents
- $420.9 million in short‑term available‑for‑sale investments
- $112.0 million in long‑term investments
Total cash and investment securities come to around $559 million, giving the company substantial runway to fund continued R&D, even with ongoing non‑GAAP operating losses in the $10–15 million per quarter range.
At the same time, Motley Fool’s analysis points out that this cash cushion came with significant share dilution — Rigetti’s share count is up about 73% year‑over‑year, a common but painful trade‑off for early‑stage tech companies. [15]
4. Quantum Roadmap: 100+ Qubits Now, 1,000+ by 2027
The bullish case for RGTI stock rests heavily on Rigetti’s technology roadmap and its ability to scale superconducting qubit systems while improving fidelity (error rates).
In recent earnings and industry coverage, Rigetti has laid out an ambitious plan: [16]
- By end of 2025:
- Deliver a 100+ qubit, chiplet‑based quantum system
- Target around 99.5% median two‑qubit gate fidelity
- By 2026:
- Launch a 150+ qubit system with 99.7% gate fidelity (as highlighted by Needham analyst Quinn Bolton)
- By 2027:
- Deliver a 1,000+ qubit system with about 99.8% two‑qubit gate fidelity, designed as a modular, multi‑chip architecture aimed at “real‑world” problem solving
TipRanks reports that Bolton views this roadmap as “realistic” and supportive of Rigetti’s long‑term scaling story, assuming the company executes to plan. [17]
The Quantum Insider also notes that Rigetti management still expects to deliver its 100+ qubit chiplet-based system by year‑end 2025, emphasizing both gate fidelity and modularity as key differentiators. [18]
Whether these milestones materialize on time — and whether they translate into meaningful commercial advantage over classical computers — is the core open question for the stock.
5. Strategic Partnerships and Government‑Linked Contracts
Beyond the lab roadmap, Rigetti has spent 2025 stacking up commercial wins and collaborations that could underpin long‑term revenue growth.
Key deals and announcements:
5.1 Novera hardware sales: $5.7 million in quantum systems
On September 30, 2025, Rigetti announced purchase orders totaling approximately $5.7 million for two 9‑qubit Novera™ quantum computing systems. These systems are upgradeable, allowing customers to increase qubit counts over time, and deliveries are expected in the first half of 2026. [19]
This is an important signal that some customers are willing to buy on‑premise quantum hardware rather than only rent cloud access.
5.2 AFRL contract with QphoX: $5.8 million for quantum networking
On September 18, 2025, Rigetti, in collaboration with Dutch quantum startup QphoX, was awarded a $5.8 million, three‑year contract from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to advance superconducting quantum networking. [20]
The project aims to link superconducting quantum processors over networks, a key piece of future distributed quantum computing and secure communication architectures.
5.3 NVIDIA NVQLink: integrating quantum with AI supercomputers
On October 28, 2025, Rigetti announced it is supporting NVIDIA’s NVQLink, a new open platform designed to integrate AI supercomputers with quantum processors. [21]
Rigetti showcased its quantum hardware in the Quantum Computing Pavilion at NVIDIA GTC Washington, D.C., highlighting the industry’s push toward hybrid HPC + quantum workflows.
5.4 Quanta Computer collaboration: over $100 million each over five years
In February 2025, Rigetti entered a strategic collaboration agreement with Quanta Computer, a Taiwan‑based Fortune 500 server manufacturer. According to Reuters coverage, Rigetti and Quanta each plan to invest over $100 million over five years to accelerate development and commercialization of superconducting quantum systems. [22]
The partnership is intended to marry Rigetti’s quantum expertise with Quanta’s scale in server manufacturing and hardware integration, potentially easing the path from prototype systems to data‑center‑scale deployments.
5.5 Academic and international expansion
Rigetti has also announced collaborations with:
- Montana State University (MSU), to advance quantum research, workforce development and co‑development of enabling technologies, and
- India’s Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C‑DAC), as highlighted in The Quantum Insider’s coverage of Rigetti’s Q3 results. [23]
There are also early plans to expand into Italy, signaling that Rigetti is targeting global research and industrial ecosystems rather than just U.S. customers. [24]
Taken together, these contracts and collaborations show that Rigetti is not just a lab project — it is slowly building a network of government, academic and industrial partners around its platform. The absolute dollar amounts are still small compared to the company’s market value, but directionally they support the long‑term commercialization story.
6. Wall Street Forecasts for RGTI: Bullish Ratings, Divided Targets
Analysts are fascinated by RGTI — and deeply split on what the stock is worth.
6.1 Consensus rating: “Moderate Buy”
Most major aggregators agree that Wall Street’s current stance on Rigetti is a “Moderate Buy”:
- TipRanks: 7 analysts over the last 3 months — 5 Buys, 2 Holds, 0 Sells — rating RGTI as a Moderate Buy. [25]
- MarketBeat: 7 analysts over the last 12 months — 5 Buys, 1 Hold, 1 Sell — also summarize the consensus as Moderate Buy. [26]
That said, the presence of at least one Sell rating reflects real skepticism about valuation and execution risk.
6.2 Price targets: high‑upside bulls vs cautious averages
Here’s where the story gets more nuanced. Different platforms, often using the same underlying analysts but updated at different times, show very different average price targets:
- TipRanks 12‑month forecast:
- Average target: $40.60
- High: $51.00
- Low: $35.00
- Based on a recent price of $30.06, TipRanks calculates ~35% upside; relative to the current ~$28 share price, the upside would be closer to 40–45%. [27]
- Needham (Quinn Bolton):
- Street‑high target at $51, implying ~95%+ upside from recent levels, driven by confidence in Rigetti’s roadmap to 150+ qubits in 2026 and 1,000+ qubits by 2027. [28]
- MarketBeat 12‑month forecast:
- Average target: $25.43
- High: $40.00, Low: $12.00
- Based on the current price of $28.11, MarketBeat estimates -9.5% downside, i.e., the stock already trades above its average target. [29]
Other sources like Zacks, StockAnalysis and Public.com cluster average targets in the low‑ to mid‑$20s, with ranges extending as high as $51, which broadly matches the TipRanks/Needham bull case. [30]
In short:
- Ratings are mostly positive (Moderate Buy)
- Targets are all over the map, from $12 on the low end to $51 on the high end
- Some tools show big upside, while others see modest downside from current levels
That spread reflects just how uncertain the timing and scale of future quantum revenue really is.
7. Insider Selling and Fundamentals: Reasons for Caution
MarketBeat’s latest note highlights several red flags that more cautious investors are watching: [31]
- Negative profitability metrics:
- Net margin in Q3 was extraordinarily negative (over -4,700% by MarketBeat’s calculation), reflecting tiny revenue against large R&D and non‑cash charges.
- Return on equity (ROE) is also deeply negative.
- Insider selling:
- Over the last three months, insiders have sold roughly 405,930 shares, worth about $9.58 million.
- Two board members alone accounted for more than $4 million in sales at prices ranging from about $19 to $45 per share.
- Share dilution and investor expectations:
- Motley Fool notes that Rigetti’s share count rose 73% over the last year as the company raised cash through equity offerings, even as it remains far from profitability. [32]
Several commentators have compared RGTI’s story to earlier hype cycles in cannabis, crypto or EV stocks — sectors where early winners saw explosive gains followed by long, grinding declines as fundamentals failed to match expectations. [33]
None of this guarantees a negative outcome for Rigetti, but it underscores that RGTI is still a high‑risk, story‑driven stock, not a mature cash‑generating business.
8. Key Catalysts to Watch in 2026
For investors tracking RGTI from here, several milestones loom large:
- Delivery of the 100+ qubit system (late 2025 / early 2026)
- Confirmation that the system meets ~99.5% two‑qubit fidelity targets would support the roadmap narrative. [34]
- Progress on the AFRL and QphoX networking contract
- Any technical milestones or follow‑on contracts could validate Rigetti’s relevance in U.S. defense and secure communications. [35]
- Expansion of hardware sales beyond the two Novera systems
- Additional orders in the multi‑million‑dollar range would help shift the revenue profile away from one‑off research contracts. [36]
- Further clarity on U.S. government quantum policy
- The recent jump on John Martinis’ comments shows how sensitive RGTI is to headlines about U.S.–China tech rivalry. Any confirmed funding programs or strategic investments in quantum could materially move the stock — either positively (if Rigetti participates) or negatively (if it is left out). [37]
- Execution against the 2026–2027 roadmap
- Investors will be looking for evidence that Rigetti is progressing toward 150+ qubits in 2026 and 1,000+ qubits in 2027 with the fidelity levels required for commercially useful workloads. [38]
9. RGTI Stock FAQ (As of December 6, 2025)
Is RGTI stock a buy, sell or hold right now?
Across major analyst aggregators, Rigetti Computing currently carries a “Moderate Buy” consensus:
- TipRanks: 5 Buy, 2 Hold, 0 Sell
- MarketBeat: 5 Buy, 1 Hold, 1 Sell
That translates to cautious optimism from Wall Street — but with at least one explicit Sell rating reflecting valuation and execution risk. [39]
What is the average analyst price target for RGTI?
Depending on the data provider:
- TipRanks: ~$40.60 average, high $51, low $35 (substantial upside vs. current ~$28)
- MarketBeat: ~$25.43 average, high $40, low $12 (roughly -9.5% downside vs. current levels)
In practical terms, analyst targets for RGTI span from $12 to $51, with the average generally in the mid‑$20s to low‑$40s. [40]
Why is RGTI so volatile?
RGTI combines:
- A small revenue base (~$1.95M in Q3, ~$5.2M for the first nine months of 2025)
- Very large losses on a GAAP basis, driven in part by derivative warrant revaluation
- High hopes for future U.S. government support and commercial quantum adoption
- A rapidly expanding share count and strong but finite cash position (~$559M) [41]
This makes the stock highly sensitive to:
- Earnings surprises (positive or negative)
- News about quantum policy and defense contracts
- Changes in risk appetite for speculative tech
Bottom Line: A High‑Beta Bet on Quantum and Policy
As of December 6, 2025, RGTI stock sits at the intersection of:
- Cutting‑edge technology (superconducting quantum processors and modular multi‑chip architectures)
- National security narratives (U.S.–China competition in quantum)
- Speculative market psychology (a 700%+ 12‑month gain, followed by a 42% drop in one month)
The company has:
- A credible technical roadmap to 1,000+ qubits by 2027
- A strong cash and investment position of roughly $559 million
- Growing government, academic and industrial partnerships
But it also faces:
- Tiny current revenue, heavy losses and ongoing dilution
- Extreme valuation risk, with a ~$9–10 billion market cap on single‑digit millions of sales
- Real possibility that commercial quantum advantage takes longer and costs more than the market currently assumes
References
1. www.marketbeat.com, 2. www.nasdaq.com, 3. www.nasdaq.com, 4. www.nasdaq.com, 5. www.marketbeat.com, 6. www.tradingview.com, 7. www.nasdaq.com, 8. www.nasdaq.com, 9. www.tradingview.com, 10. www.tradingview.com, 11. investingnews.com, 12. www.tipranks.com, 13. investingnews.com, 14. investingnews.com, 15. www.nasdaq.com, 16. thequantuminsider.com, 17. www.tipranks.com, 18. thequantuminsider.com, 19. www.globenewswire.com, 20. www.globenewswire.com, 21. www.globenewswire.com, 22. www.globenewswire.com, 23. thequantuminsider.com, 24. thequantuminsider.com, 25. www.tipranks.com, 26. www.marketbeat.com, 27. www.tipranks.com, 28. www.tipranks.com, 29. www.marketbeat.com, 30. www.zacks.com, 31. www.marketbeat.com, 32. www.nasdaq.com, 33. www.nasdaq.com, 34. thequantuminsider.com, 35. www.globenewswire.com, 36. www.globenewswire.com, 37. www.tradingview.com, 38. www.tipranks.com, 39. www.tipranks.com, 40. www.tipranks.com, 41. investingnews.com
