Rigetti Computing (RGTI) Stock News Today: DARPA Setback, Citadel Buying and 2026

As of December 9, 2025, Rigetti Computing, Inc. (NASDAQ: RGTI) remains one of the wildest rides in quantum computing. The stock is trading around $27–28 per share, with intraday moves between roughly $26.9 and $28.2, implying a market cap just under $10 billion on trailing 12‑month revenue of only about $7.5 million. ^[1]

Over the past year, Rigetti’s share price has gone parabolic and then some—up roughly 586% over the last 52 weeks by one hedge fund’s tally and around 3,750% since January 2023—yet the stock also collapsed about 42% in November after a messy third‑quarter report and a harsh valuation reset. ^[2]

Today’s headlines capture that tension perfectly. Zacks now frames Rigetti as a high‑risk “wait‑and‑see” story after weak Q3 numbers and a miss in DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative Stage B selection, rating the stock a Hold. At the same time, billionaire Ken Griffin’s Citadel Advisors disclosed a new Q3 position of 51,700 RGTI shares, a small but symbolic bet on quantum’s long‑term upside. ^[3]

Below is a detailed look at Rigetti’s latest stock news, fundamentals, and forecasts as of December 9, 2025.

Rigetti stock price today and performance snapshot

Real‑time quotes show RGTI around $27–28 on December 9, modestly down on the day and well below its recent peak above $58, but still dramatically higher than its 52‑week low near $4.28. ^[4]

According to Zacks, Rigetti shares are up about 85% year to date, handily outperforming the roughly 10% gain in the broader Internet–Software industry—even after the brutal November drawdown. ^[5]

Viewed over a longer horizon, multiple analyses estimate that Rigetti is up roughly 586% over the last 52 weeks and around 3,750% since January 2023, placing it among the most explosive speculative tech names of this cycle. ^[6]

That performance has drawn in sophisticated investors. White Brook Capital now includes Rigetti in its small‑cap growth strategy, while Citadel’s new stake, though tiny relative to its overall assets, signals institutional willingness to pay up for Rigetti’s quantum roadmap. ^[7]

Q3 2025 earnings: shrinking revenue, huge accounting loss

In Q3 2025 (quarter ended September 30), Rigetti’s numbers looked like classic early‑stage deep‑tech finance:

Revenue: $1.9 million, down about 18% year over year, as older government contracts rolled off and new work hasn’t scaled yet. ^[8]
Operating loss: $20.5 million for the quarter. ^[9]
GAAP net loss: $201.0 million, or –$0.62 per share, inflated by a big non‑cash hit from revaluing warrant and earn‑out liabilities after the stock’s huge rally. ^[10]
Non‑GAAP net loss: $10.7 million, or –$0.03 per share, a narrower loss than the –$0.05 analysts expected, so EPS technically “beat” consensus. ^[11]

Free‑cash‑flow burn came in around $19–20 million for the quarter—smaller than the GAAP loss but still substantial. Management again emphasized that revenue remains uneven because most demand still comes from lumpy government and research deals rather than recurring commercial usage. ^[12]

Zacks highlights a gross‑margin collapse from ~51% to ~21%, driven by a less favorable contract mix, while operating expenses rose to about $21 million on higher R&D, wages and stock‑based compensation—underlining just how far Rigetti is from operating leverage. ^[13]

The one clear comfort: the balance sheet. Rigetti finished Q3 with $558.9 million in cash, equivalents and investments, rising to roughly $600 million by November 6, 2025 as investors exercised warrants. That gives the company sizeable runway despite its heavy burn. ^[14]

DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative: Stage B miss

A major narrative in 2025 has been Rigetti’s role in the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI), a multi‑stage program designed to test whether any quantum architecture can achieve “utility‑scale” computing by 2033—that is, deliver more value than it costs. ^[15]

Rigetti was selected for Stage A earlier this year, a six‑month sprint focused on proposing a credible path to such a utility‑scale machine. ^[16]

On November 6, DARPA announced the initial list of 11 companies advancing to Stage B, which funds a more detailed R&D plan and prototype work. Rigetti was not on that first list, a setback the company disclosed in its Q3 press release and Form 8‑K, noting only that it had received “constructive input” and that dialogue with DARPA remains ongoing, with management still “optimistic” about joining Stage B later. ^[17]

Zacks calls this Stage B miss a key driver of recent share‑price weakness, arguing it adds another layer of execution risk in a story already struggling to show commercial traction. ^[18]

Contracts, collaborations and the quantum roadmap

Despite the DARPA disappointment, Rigetti’s Q3 and recent updates contained several positives that bulls point to:

New system sales and government contracts

Rigetti booked purchase orders totalling about $5.7 million for two on‑premises Novera™ systems (9‑qubit machines that can be upgraded later). Delivery is expected in the first half of 2026. ^[19]
One system will be installed at a major Asian technology manufacturer building internal quantum know‑how; the other goes to a California applied‑physics/AI start‑up focused on hardware and error‑correction research. ^[20]

On the government side:

Rigetti, in collaboration with Dutch start‑up QphoX, won a three‑year, $5.8 million contract from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to develop systems that convert microwave signals from superconducting qubits into optical photons—core plumbing for quantum networking. ^[21]

Ecosystem partnerships

Rigetti is also extending its reach via partnerships:

A memorandum of understanding with India’s Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C‑DAC) to co‑develop hybrid quantum systems and applications. ^[22]
A collaboration with Montana State University, where a 9‑qubit Novera processor is now on‑premises at the QCORE research center—Rigetti’s first academic on‑site deployment. ^[23]
Integration support for NVIDIA’s NVQLink, enabling lower‑latency links between Rigetti hardware and AI supercomputers for hybrid quantum‑AI workloads. ^[24]
Plans to open an Italian subsidiary, aimed at tapping Europe’s growing quantum funding pools and talent. ^[25]

Hardware roadmap

All of this feeds into a very ambitious technology plan:

100+ qubit chiplet‑based system with ~99.5% median two‑qubit gate fidelity targeted by the end of 2025. ^[26]
150+ qubit system with ~99.7% fidelity around end‑2026. ^[27]
1,000+ qubit system with ~99.8% fidelity around end‑2027, using larger 36‑qubit chiplets. ^[28]

Earlier in 2025, independent coverage of Rigetti’s Ankaa‑3 processor reported a 36‑qubit multi‑chip system achieving about 99.5% two‑qubit gate fidelity, positioning the company as an early leader in modular superconducting architectures even if competitors still hold the edge in absolute fidelity numbers. ^[29]

For believers, these milestones support the view that Rigetti can scale a full‑stack, modular quantum platform if it executes on this roadmap. ^[30]

Funding, dilution and balance‑sheet reality

Rigetti’s sprint toward that roadmap has been financed heavily via equity:

In Q2 2025, the company completed sales of common stock raising about $350 million in gross proceeds. ^[31]
Earlier, Quanta Computer invested $35 million via a stock purchase, giving Rigetti a strategic manufacturing partner and extra cash. ^[32]

Trefis estimates that Rigetti now generates roughly $7.9 million in annual revenue, with last‑twelve‑month revenue growth of –37.2%, an operating margin near –976%, no meaningful debt, and a cash‑to‑assets ratio around 0.67—a picture of a company rich in cash but far from any semblance of profitability. ^[33]

At current prices this works out to a market cap around $9–10 billion and a trailing price‑to‑sales multiple between ~893x and 1,080x, depending on the data source—levels that far exceed even exuberant quantum peers like IonQ and D‑Wave Quantum. ^[34]

Zacks puts Rigetti’s price‑to‑book ratio near 24.7x, versus an industry average around 6x, awarding the stock its worst Value Score of “F”. ^[35]

White Brook Capital’s Q3 letter goes further, calling Rigetti a clear example of AI/quantum froth: roughly $3 million in quarterly sales, losses north of $15 million per quarter, yet at times an $18 billion+ market cap, amounting to “thousands of turns” of forward revenue in its words. ^[36]

Wall Street views: from ‘Strong Buy’ to bubble warnings

Traditional analyst coverage

Despite the nosebleed multiples, published sell‑side ratings skew surprisingly positive:

MarketBeat: tracks 7 analysts with a “Moderate Buy” consensus (5 Buy, 1 Hold, 1 Sell) and an average 12‑month price target of $25.43, with a range from $12 to $40. Based on a reference price of about $27.33, that implies ~7% downside. ^[37]
StockAnalysis: looking at 5 covering analysts, labels Rigetti a “Strong Buy” with an average target of $24, about 12% below the current price, reflecting expectations of consolidation after the 2025 melt‑up. ^[38]
TipRanks: aggregates 7 recent targets and lands on a much higher average of $40.60, with a range from $35 to $51, implying roughly 44% upside from a price around $28, and categorises Rigetti as a “Moderate Buy” based on 5 Buy and 2 Hold ratings. ^[39]

On the single‑analyst level, Benchmark’s David Williams reiterated a Buy on November 12 with a $40 target, arguing that Rigetti’s chiplet‑based roadmap and partnership momentum justify a constructive view even after the stock dropped about 42% in a month. ^[40]

By contrast, Zacks assigns Rigetti a Rank #3 (Hold), flagging revenue declines, margin compression and the DARPA Stage B miss as reasons to stay cautious rather than chase the stock after big swings. ^[41]

Hedge funds and AI scoring models

White Brook notes that hedge‑fund ownership is rising: 25 hedge funds held Rigetti at the end of Q3 2025, up from 17 in the prior quarter, even as it personally questions whether the stock’s valuation reflects a mini‑bubble in AI and quantum names. ^[42]

CoinCentral reports that Citadel Advisors added about 51,700 Rigetti shares and 122,600 D‑Wave shares in Q3. While tiny positions for a firm of Citadel’s size, they line up with a Wall Street median price target near $40 for RGTI, or roughly 42% upside from about $28, and suggest some smart‑money willingness to treat Rigetti as a long‑duration option on quantum computing. ^[43]

On the quantitative side:

Danelfin gives Rigetti an AI Score of 7/10 (“Buy”), estimating about a 58.9% probability that the stock will beat the market in the next three months; based on analyst targets, it calculates a 1‑year upside of ~43% to around $40.5. ^[44]
CoinCodex’s price‑prediction model is more cautious, projecting the share price to slip to about $24.93 over the next year (roughly –9.5% from here), but to potentially reach around $55.33 by 2030, a little more than a doubling from current levels, if Rigetti ultimately executes. ^[45]

Both services emphasise that these are model‑driven forecasts, heavily based on historic price and volume patterns rather than deep fundamental or technological analysis, so they should be treated as speculative scenario‑tools, not guarantees. ^[46]

Media sentiment and ‘bubble’ talk

Recent commentary shows just how polarised sentiment has become:

A widely read column hosted on Nasdaq.com highlighted Rigetti’s 42% November plunge, pointing out that Q3 revenue fell 18% to $1.95 million while GAAP net losses ballooned to $201 million, and likened the stock’s boom‑and‑bust pattern to past speculative waves in cannabis, cryptocurrencies and EVs. ^[47]
An AI‑generated deep dive from AInvest calculates Rigetti trading at around 893x price‑to‑sales on a $9.28 billion market cap and only $1.9 million in Q3 revenue, framing the company as a case study in whether quantum is a “bubble or breakthrough.” ^[48]
Motley Fool titles over the last week alone range from “Should You Buy Rigetti Computing Stock After Its 2,750% Gain?” to “Forget Rigetti Computing and Buy This Safer Quantum Stock Instead” and a prediction that a quantum computing bubble could burst in 2026, illustrating how even bullish commentators are increasingly emphasising risk and position sizing. ^[49]

How weak are the fundamentals right now?

Fundamentally, most neutral observers agree: Rigetti is nowhere near commercial maturity.

Trefis bluntly labels the company’s operational profile “very weak”, highlighting negative revenue growth, extremely negative margins and persistent losses, even as the stock price has rocketed. ^[50]

Investors.com notes that even in Q1 2025, when Rigetti briefly reported positive EPS thanks to a $62.1 million non‑cash gain from revaluing derivatives, revenue actually fell 51% year over year to $1.5 million—illustrating how accounting noise can obscure the lack of underlying business scale. ^[51]

Zacks now expects full‑year 2025 revenue to decline about 23.8%, while earnings per share are forecast to stay negative and worsen by roughly 88.9% compared with last year. ^[52]

White Brook’s letter drives the point home: quantum computing companies, it argues, are “multiple generations of computing standards away” from broad economic use, yet some—Rigetti included—trade at elevated multiples of forward revenue that are hard to justify without extremely optimistic assumptions about adoption, margins and market share. ^[53]

The bull case: why some investors still like Rigetti

For supporters, the thesis isn’t about today’s P&L; it’s about positioning in a potentially massive future market. Key bull arguments include:

A rare, full‑stack independent player
Rigetti designs its own superconducting qubit chips, fabricates them in‑house, runs them over the cloud and sells on‑premises systems—something only a handful of players globally can claim. ^[54]
Promising modular architecture
The company’s chiplet‑based approach, showcased in Ankaa‑3 and its planned 100+, 150+ and 1,000+ qubit systems, aims to scale quantum computers by stitching together multiple 36‑qubit tiles while maintaining high gate fidelity (99.5–99.8% targets). ^[55]
Strategic government and academic alignment
Participation in DARPA’s QBI Stage A, the AFRL networking contract, collaborations with C‑DAC and Montana State University, and integration with NVIDIA’s NVQLink are seen as signals that Rigetti is part of the “serious” cohort shaping early quantum standards. ^[56]
Long‑term demand projections
CoinCentral reports that Rigetti itself expects only $1–2 billion per year in market demand through 2030, mainly from research institutions, but sees potential for $15–30 billion annually beyond 2030 as enterprise and government use‑cases mature. ^[57]

If that long‑term scenario materialises and Rigetti captures even a modest share, bulls argue, today’s valuation could end up looking less extreme, especially given the company’s large cash balance and lack of debt. ^[58]

The bear case: bubble risk, dilution and long timelines

Skeptics see a very different picture:

Valuation far ahead of fundamentals
With price‑to‑sales ratios estimated between ~893x and 1,080x, Rigetti trades at multi‑hundred‑times revenue—well above already frothy peers like IonQ (~303x) and D‑Wave (~120x) in some comparisons. ^[59]
Serial dilution risk
The $350 million equity raise in mid‑2025, combined with sizable warrant exercises and earlier stock issuances, suggests a pattern: funding operations via the equity market while valuations are high. If commercialization takes another decade, more dilution could be coming. ^[60]
Speculative cycle parallels
Commentators hosted on Nasdaq and elsewhere explicitly compare Rigetti’s trajectory to previous bubbles in cannabis, crypto and EVs—periods where valuations soared long before sustainable revenue and profits arrived, often leaving late entrants with steep losses. ^[61]
DARPA Stage B optics
While DARPA has left the door open for more Stage B participants, Rigetti’s absence from the initial cohort has been interpreted by some as a sign that competitors may be further along—or at least more compelling—to a key government customer right now. ^[62]
Uncertain commercialization timeline
Even bullish analyses generally assume that truly “useful” quantum computers won’t be mainstream for one to two decades, meaning Rigetti could remain a loss‑making R&D‑heavy company for many years before recurring, high‑margin revenue appears—if it ever does. ^[63]

Is Rigetti (RGTI) stock a buy, sell or hold after December’s news?

Putting all this together, Rigetti looks less like a conventional growth stock and more like a high‑beta call option on superconducting quantum computing: the upside could be enormous if the roadmap works and the market blossoms, but the path is long, volatile and uncertain.

Professional research is sharply divided but mildly skewed toward optimism: most covering analysts rate Rigetti a Buy or Strong Buy, with one‑year price targets clustering anywhere from the mid‑$20s up to $40–$51, while AI‑driven tools like Danelfin’s scoring model give the stock slightly better‑than‑average odds of beating the market over the next few months. ^[64]

On the other hand, fundamentals‑focused outfits such as Trefis, Zacks, White Brook and several AI‑driven macro analyses stress that Rigetti’s valuation embeds years of almost flawless execution despite shrinking revenue, widening non‑cash losses and an immature commercial market, leading them to characterise the shares as very expensive and to recommend caution or a simple Hold rather than aggressive buying. ^[65]

In practice:

Risk‑tolerant investors who deeply understand quantum technology sometimes treat Rigetti as a small, speculative position within a diversified portfolio—sized so that even a near‑total loss wouldn’t derail their financial plan. Several independent commentators explicitly suggest limiting exposure to a few percent or less of a portfolio given the volatility. ^[66]
More conservative investors, or those uncomfortable with repeated equity raises and extreme drawdowns, may prefer to watch from the sidelines or gain quantum exposure indirectly via larger, diversified tech companies (cloud providers, chipmakers) that are investing heavily in quantum but have robust existing cash flows. ^[67]

Either way, Rigetti remains a highly speculative stock. This article is for information only, not investment advice. Anyone considering buying or selling RGTI should do their own research and, ideally, consult a qualified financial adviser who understands their specific situation.

Key catalysts to watch in 2026

Investors tracking Rigetti into 2026 will likely focus on:

Delivery and performance of the 100+ qubit system promised by the end of 2025, and any independent verification of its 99.5% fidelity target. ^[68]
News on DARPA QBI Stage B, especially any indication that Rigetti has been added to the next wave of participants. ^[69]
Additional Novera or larger‑system orders, which would show whether real paying customers are starting to line up beyond early lighthouse deals. ^[70]
Revenue and margin trends in 2026–2027, particularly whether revenue can resume sustainable growth after the forecast ~24% decline in 2025 while cash burn stabilises. ^[71]
Competitive developments from rivals like IonQ and D‑Wave, as well as moves by giants like IBM, Google and HPE in the same DARPA and government‑funded arenas. ^[72]

For now, Rigetti sits squarely at the intersection of cutting‑edge physics and speculative market psychology. December’s mix of DARPA disappointment, hedge‑fund buying, and wildly divergent forecasts only reinforces its status as one of the highest‑risk, highest‑reward stories in public markets today.