Dec. 23, 2025 — D‑Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE: QBTS) is having a very 2025 kind of week: a headline-driven surge, a fast cooldown, and a fresh wave of Wall Street analysis trying to put a price tag on a technology that still feels like it escaped from a physics lab.
After closing at $32.19 on Monday, QBTS was trading around $31.18 in the latest Tuesday session update, with the day’s range roughly $30.43 to $31.98.
So what’s moving the stock right now—and what are analysts actually forecasting as 2026 approaches?
Why D‑Wave stock is in the spotlight this week
Two forces are colliding:
- A near-term catalyst: D‑Wave says it will participate in CES 2026 as a sponsor of the CES Foundry event in Las Vegas (Jan. 7–8, 2026), where it plans to showcase customer use cases and hybrid quantum work. [1]
- A Wall Street coverage wave: Multiple major firms initiated coverage in December, pushing quantum stocks from “interesting science project” to “sector with price targets.” Investors.com described 2025 as the year Wall Street “discovered” pure-play quantum names—D‑Wave included—while also emphasizing how volatile and uncertain commercialization remains. [2]
That combination—conference buzz + analyst initiations—is rocket fuel for a momentum stock.
CES 2026: what D‑Wave announced, and why markets reacted
D‑Wave’s CES news isn’t “new revenue tomorrow morning.” CES is a visibility and narrative machine—especially the Foundry track, which brings together investors, founders, government leaders, and media.
In its announcement, D‑Wave said it will sponsor the CES Foundry at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas on Jan. 7–8, 2026, and that executive Murray Thom will deliver a masterclass and demo on Jan. 7 (1:00–1:30 p.m. PT) focused on how businesses can realize value from quantum computing now, including potential synergy between quantum, AI, and blockchain. [3]
Markets clearly cared. TipRanks reported QBTS jumped 20% on Monday after the CES plans, closing at $32.19, and noted the stock is up dramatically in 2025. [4]
The underlying logic is straightforward: if quantum is transitioning from theory to “tools people pay for,” then showcasing real deployments at a mass-market tech event is a credibility flex—especially for D‑Wave, which positions itself as “practical quantum.”
The analyst wave: price targets and what they’re betting on
December brought a stack of new (or newly prominent) analyst calls on D‑Wave and its quantum peers.
What the consensus looks like right now
StockAnalysis.com tracks 14 analysts covering QBTS and shows a consensus leaning bullish, with a wide dispersion:
- Average price target: about $31.50
- Median target: about $35
- High target: about $46
- Low target: about $12
- Consensus rating: “Strong Buy” [5]
Who initiated coverage (and at what targets)
Several December initiations cited by StockAnalysis include:
- Jefferies:$45 target (initiated Dec. 16) [6]
- Mizuho:$46 target (initiated Dec. 11) [7]
- Wedbush:$35 target (initiated Dec. 17) [8]
- Evercore ISI:$44 target (initiated Dec. 3) [9]
This is not a subtle signal: the Street is trying to build a valuation framework around quantum pure plays—knowing full well the framework may catch fire in a sudden gust of volatility.
The “big market” thesis behind the targets
The optimistic research narrative isn’t just “D‑Wave is cool.” It’s that quantum becomes a meaningful layer of compute spending over the next decade.
MarketWatch summarized Mizuho’s view of quantum as a major compute revolution, including forecasts that the quantum market could grow to $205 billion by 2035, while also warning near-term revenues may be inconsistent. [10]
Whether those long-range numbers are right is the great unknown—but they’re part of what’s powering bullish coverage.
Fundamentals check: revenue is growing, but it’s still early innings
To understand why QBTS can swing hard on headlines, look at the base reality: the company is still small in revenue terms, even if it’s growing quickly and well-funded.
Q3 2025 results: growth plus a war chest
In its Q3 2025 report (quarter ended Sept. 30, 2025), D‑Wave reported:
- Revenue:$3.7 million, up 100% year over year
- Bookings:$2.4 million, up 80% versus the prior quarter
- Cash balance:over $836 million, described as the highest in company history [11]
That cash number matters because quantum R&D and go-to-market cycles are long. A company that can survive the long winter gets to see the spring.
Barron’s also highlighted that the company’s large net loss in the quarter was heavily influenced by non-cash, non-operating warrant-related charges, while noting warrant exercises helped boost cash levels. [12]
Capital structure cleanup: the warrant redemption
One reason D‑Wave’s equity story looks “cleaner” going into 2026 is that it completed the redemption of its public warrants.
D‑Wave said that after announcing redemption in October, 4,746,358 warrants were exercised for about 6.9 million shares, generating roughly $54.6 million in cash proceeds; remaining unexercised warrants were redeemed for $0.01 each, and no public warrants remained outstanding afterward. [13]
Jefferies’ initiation note (as summarized by Investing.com) explicitly pointed to a “cleaned-up” equity structure following warrant redemption and described D‑Wave entering 2026 with $836.2 million in cash and about $32 million in debt. [14]
What D‑Wave actually sells: annealing now, gate-model later
Quantum is not one thing. It’s a family of approaches.
A widely cited framework (including in recent mainstream investing coverage) is that there are gate-based quantum computers (often discussed as general-purpose in the long run) and quantum annealing, which is typically framed as more immediately applicable to certain optimization problems. [15]
D‑Wave’s identity is tightly tied to annealing—and to the claim that it can deliver value sooner for optimization-heavy workloads (routing, scheduling, resource allocation, and similar problems).
At the same time, D‑Wave emphasizes it is pursuing both annealing and gate-model directions. In its Q3 update, the company noted work on fluxonium qubit chips and superconducting control chips aimed at scalable control of gate-model qubits. [16]
Jefferies’ initiation (per Investing.com) described a “two-pronged roadmap,” with annealing targeting optimization and gate-model aimed at areas like simulation and linear algebra, using a shared superconducting stack and longer-term efforts toward logical qubits. [17]
This dual-track strategy is central to the bull case: monetize “practical” quantum use cases now, while still having a seat at the table if gate-model quantum becomes dominant later.
Forecasts heading into 2026: what analysts think can happen next
There are two different “forecast” layers investors are watching:
1) Price targets (12-month-ish)
As noted earlier, the tracked target range spans roughly $12 to $46, with many recent initiations clustering in the mid-$30s to mid-$40s. [18]
2) Revenue trajectory
StockAnalysis also shows analyst financial forecasts implying a sharp step-up:
- Revenue “this year” around $26.15M (up meaningfully from the prior year)
- Revenue “next year” around $40.74M [19]
A Motley Fool analysis syndicated on Nasdaq similarly cites expectations around $25.5M revenue for 2025 and about $39.5M for 2026. [20]
Those numbers rhyme: the Street is modeling rapid growth off a small base.
The risk section (because physics doesn’t care about your cost basis)
If you’re writing about QBTS honestly, you have to say the quiet part out loud:
- Quantum pure plays remain highly volatile. Investors.com explicitly warns that commercialization uncertainty keeps the sector volatile, even as big banks publish research and initiate coverage. [21]
- Profitability is not expected soon. One Motley Fool commentary argues valuation is extremely rich relative to current revenue and cites data suggesting profitability may not arrive until later in the decade. [22]
- Competition is intense. In quantum, the “pure plays” compete for mindshare while major tech incumbents (IBM, Google, Microsoft, and others) shape the broader ecosystem—another factor Investors.com flags when discussing the sector’s landscape. [23]
In short: QBTS can be a legitimate technology story and a treacherous stock chart at the same time. Welcome to markets.
Key dates and catalysts investors are watching next
Several near-term milestones are now on the calendar:
- CES Foundry (Las Vegas): Jan. 7–8, 2026 — D‑Wave sponsor participation and booth presence. [24]
- Masterclass/demo:Jan. 7, 2026 (1:00–1:30 p.m. PT) led by Murray Thom. [25]
- Qubits 2026 user conference:Jan. 27–28, 2026 (Boca Raton, Florida) — expected to feature roadmap updates across annealing and gate-model initiatives. [26]
- U.S. government-focused push: D‑Wave disclosed the formation of a new U.S. government business unit led by Jack Sears Jr., aimed at accelerating adoption of its quantum offerings in government contexts. [27]
Each event is a potential narrative catalyst. The investment question is whether narrative becomes durable revenue.
Bottom line for Dec. 23, 2025
As of Dec. 23, 2025, D‑Wave Quantum (QBTS) sits at the center of a rare market moment where:
- the company is supplying “real” quantum products (at least for a subset of problems),
- its cash position is unusually large for a small-revenue tech firm, [28]
- and the sell-side is actively building a quantum sector playbook with aggressive long-term market forecasts and near-term price targets. [29]
But QBTS remains a stock where execution, adoption, and expectations are constantly wrestling. The next few weeks—CES in early January and the Qubits conference later in the month—should offer fresh signals on whether 2026 begins with substance, or just another round of quantum-flavored adrenaline.
References
1. www.dwavequantum.com, 2. www.investors.com, 3. www.dwavequantum.com, 4. www.tipranks.com, 5. stockanalysis.com, 6. stockanalysis.com, 7. stockanalysis.com, 8. stockanalysis.com, 9. stockanalysis.com, 10. www.marketwatch.com, 11. www.dwavequantum.com, 12. www.barrons.com, 13. www.dwavequantum.com, 14. www.investing.com, 15. www.nasdaq.com, 16. www.dwavequantum.com, 17. www.investing.com, 18. stockanalysis.com, 19. stockanalysis.com, 20. www.nasdaq.com, 21. www.investors.com, 22. www.fool.com, 23. www.investors.com, 24. www.dwavequantum.com, 25. www.dwavequantum.com, 26. www.sec.gov, 27. www.sec.gov, 28. www.dwavequantum.com, 29. stockanalysis.com
