New York, May 21, 2026, 09:04 EDT
- D-Wave traded at $19.30 before the NYSE opened, about 6% higher than its last close.
- The company has a letter of intent for $100 million in potential CHIPS Act funding. If a final agreement is reached, the U.S. government is due to get common stock.
- Washington took a step toward a bigger quantum-computing funding package that includes IBM, GlobalFoundries and Rigetti.
D-Wave Quantum Inc. shares were higher in premarket trading Thursday as the company said it got a letter of intent for up to $100 million in planned funding under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act. The deal would make the federal government a shareholder.
D-Wave was last quoted at $19.30, up $1.085, or about 6% from where it closed before. This was before the NYSE core trading session, which opens at 9:30 a.m. ET.
Quantum stocks aren’t trading on earnings yet, but on cash, government help, and how fast they can show real commercial tech. D-Wave’s planned award comes from the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act, a federal push to boost U.S. tech supply chains and security.
D-Wave plans to issue $100 million in common stock to the Commerce Department once the final award documents are done. The company said it will use the funds for its annealing and gate-model quantum systems, working out of research centers in Boca Raton, Florida; New Haven, Connecticut; and Burnaby, British Columbia.
Annealing systems are a type of quantum machine for optimization work. Gate-model systems use circuits and are what most investors think of when they hear general quantum computing. D-Wave said its proposed funding aims at building a 100,000-qubit annealing machine and a 10,000-qubit gate-model system. Qubits are the basic units of quantum information.
Chief Executive Alan Baratz said the award will help D-Wave “scale quantum innovation domestically” and support “real-world quantum applications.” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick called the investments a boost for “American quantum capabilities.” Bill Frauenhofer, executive director of Semiconductor Investment and Innovation, cited “national defense” and “biopharmaceutical discovery” as target uses. SEC
Sectors got a boost too. Reuters said the Trump administration is giving $2 billion in grants to nine quantum-computing firms, taking equity stakes in the deals. IBM gets $1 billion, GlobalFoundries will take $375 million. D-Wave and Rigetti get around $100 million each, according to the Wall Street Journal and Commerce Department.
D-Wave posted mixed Q1 results. Bookings soared to $33.4 million, up almost 2,000% from last year, as customers placed more orders that should turn into future revenue. Revenue dropped 81% to $2.9 million, with last year’s quarter boosted by a big system sale. Net loss widened to $18.4 million. As of March 31, cash and marketable securities were $588.4 million.
The gap between order growth and actual revenue is the main drag on the stock. Investors are betting government spending and enterprise deals will make quantum systems scalable sooner. But the current numbers still point to a company burning cash before the market is ready.
D-Wave is out with a downside scenario. The letter of intent isn’t binding, and D-Wave said talks might break down or stop, milestones may go unmet, and there’s a risk that Commerce won’t have funds. If D-Wave issues shares to Commerce, current holders could see dilution.
Technical risk is still there. Reuters said quantum computers today spend most of their power correcting errors, so they are not really faster than regular computers yet. That’s the key issue in the trade.
