NEW YORK, July 27, 2026, 9:05 a.m. EDT – Shares of D-Wave Quantum climbed 9% in premarket trade as investors weighed the company’s deal with AT&T and its impact on revenue generation.
- D-Wave shares rose 8.9% to $17.68 at about 9 a.m. ET.
- AT&T to expand usage after reducing a workload from one hour to less than 15 seconds.
- Details of the agreement were not revealed. D-Wave is set to announce its second-quarter earnings on August 6.
D-Wave Quantum Inc. NASDAQ:QBTS advanced 8.9% in premarket trading on Monday after AT&T Inc. NYSE:T agreed to expand its adoption of D-Wave systems for network operations.
The key takeaway for investors is not related to contract revenue. AT&T did not reveal any financial details. The development marks AT&T advancing from a preliminary trial to deploying multiple operational workloads.
AT&T intends to use this technology for outage response, network planning, technician dispatch and traffic management. Processing times for the first workloads dropped by over 99.5%.
AT&T reported a reduction of 12 million hours in customer downtime in 2025 through its agentic AI tools. These tools will initially incorporate D-Wave’s annealing technology.
Preliminary estimate: D-Wave’s basic equity value increased by approximately $533 million with the $1.45 gain in premarket trading, based on 367.27 million shares outstanding. This amount represents close to 91% of its March cash and is about 12.6 times its first-quarter remaining performance obligations.
At 9 a.m. ET, D-Wave was ahead of three publicly traded quantum competitors by between 4.8 and 5.6 percentage points.
| Company | Premarket price | Change |
|---|---|---|
| D-Wave Quantum Inc. NASDAQ:QBTS | $17.68 | up 8.93% |
| IonQ Inc. NYSE:IONQ | $34.15 | up 3.99% |
| Rigetti Computing Inc. NASDAQ:RGTI | $14.73 | up 4.10% |
| Quantum Computing Inc. NASDAQ:QUBT | $7.68 | up 3.36% |
All four shares climbed. D-Wave outperformed, indicating the AT&T news provided an additional boost specific to the company.
“The pace at which D-Wave is advancing pushes the boundaries of what can be achieved right now,” said Lucus Haugen, director of data science at AT&T’s Chief Data Office. D-Wave Quantum
D-Wave begins trading on Nasdaq on Monday, following a voluntary switch from the New York Stock Exchange. The ticker symbol continues to be QBTS.
Chief Executive Alan Baratz and his team were scheduled to ring the opening bell at 9:15 a.m. ET. “The quantum market is beginning to separate proof from promise,” Baratz stated prior to the event. D-Wave Quantum
Revenue has been uneven despite that evidence. Sales in the first quarter declined by 81% to $2.9 million, compared to the same period last year, which featured a $12.6 million system sale.
Bookings surged 1,994% to reach $33.4 million, while remaining performance obligations increased 563% to $42.4 million.
D-Wave anticipates that 54% of its backlog, equivalent to approximately $22.9 million, will be recognized as revenue in the next 12 months. The company’s progress on this projection will be further assessed with its results on August 6.
Risks: The financial terms of the contract have not been disclosed, and increased adoption may not rapidly translate into additional revenue. Adjusted EBITDA loss in the first quarter increased to $32.8 million. D-Wave shares remained 38% lower for the year as of Friday.
