New York, June 12, 2026, 13:18 EDT
- Rigetti Computing shares traded higher Friday after Rosenblatt’s latest Buy call kept a $40 target in focus.
- Investors are balancing quantum-computing momentum against small revenue, operating losses and possible dilution from government-linked funding.
- The next catalyst is progress on converting federal support and 108-qubit system demand into signed funding, customer deployments and stronger technical performance.
Rigetti Computing, Inc. shares were up in Friday trading, with Nasdaq-listed RGTI recently changing hands at $21.27, up $0.64 from the prior close, after touching an intraday high of $21.945 on volume of about 23.9 million shares. The move kept the quantum-computing stock in focus after a fresh analyst update and renewed interest in companies seen as potential beneficiaries of government-backed quantum research spending.
The latest stock-moving catalyst came from Wall Street. Rosenblatt Securities maintained its Buy rating on Rigetti and kept a $40 price target on June 11, according to Benzinga’s analyst-ratings tracker, while Benzinga also lists Rosenblatt as the most recent analyst rating on the stock. MarketBeat separately reported that Rosenblatt’s target implied nearly 99% upside from the previous close, although that upside changes as the share price moves. Benzinga
That matters for the stock because Rigetti is still valued more on future technical and commercial milestones than on current earnings. The company reported first-quarter revenue of $4.4 million, an operating loss of $26.0 million and cash, cash equivalents and available-for-sale investments of $569.0 million as of March 31. Non-GAAP net loss, an adjusted loss figure that excludes items such as stock-based compensation and warrant-value changes, was $14.7 million.
The bull case is that Rigetti has tangible technology and funding milestones at a time when investors are paying close attention to quantum computing. The company said its Cepheus-1-108Q system, a 108-qubit superconducting quantum processing unit, or QPU — the chip that runs quantum calculations — is available through Rigetti QCS, Amazon Braket, Microsoft Azure Quantum and qBraid. Amazon said Cepheus-1-108Q became the first gate-based quantum device with more than 100 qubits available on Amazon Braket, and Rigetti said the system uses twelve interconnected 9-qubit chiplets. GlobeNewswire
Government funding is the other major bull argument. Rigetti said in May it signed a letter of intent with the U.S. Department of Commerce for up to $100 million over three years under the CHIPS Act to accelerate superconducting quantum-computing research and development. Chief Executive Dr. Subodh Kulkarni said the investment would “tackle key scaling bottlenecks more rapidly” and move the company closer to utility-scale quantum computing, a term investors use for quantum systems that can solve useful problems beyond today’s experimental workloads. GlobeNewswire
The bear case is that the stock already prices in a large amount of future success. At the latest quoted market capitalization of about $7.13 billion, Rigetti trades at more than 400 times annualized first-quarter revenue; price-to-sales is a valuation ratio comparing a company’s market value with its sales, and annualizing a single quarter simply multiplies that quarter by four rather than forecasting the full year. Rigetti also remains loss-making on an operating basis, and the Commerce letter of intent contemplates an equity stake for the government, which the company itself flags as a potential dilution risk for existing shareholders if definitive agreements are reached.
Investors should watch three linked catalysts next: whether Rigetti converts the Commerce letter of intent into definitive funding agreements, whether the 108-qubit system produces broader customer demand, and whether the company keeps improving gate fidelity, a measure of how accurately quantum operations are performed. Rigetti said in its first-quarter update that it achieved 99.8% median two-qubit gate fidelity on its 9-qubit system and two-qubit fidelities as high as 99.9% on prototype systems, but the market will want proof that performance can scale commercially.
Based on the verified numbers, Rigetti looks risky rather than clearly cheap today. The stock has a real bull narrative — analyst support, a large cash balance, 108-qubit availability and potential federal funding — but the bear case is just as concrete: revenue remains small, operating losses are significant, valuation is aggressive and future funding or commercialization milestones may not arrive on the timeline investors expect.
