D-Wave Quantum (QBTS) closed at $20.74 on Wednesday, up 2.52% on the day. Volume came in at around 13.2 million, roughly 55% below the average session.
The move came as Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh reiterated his Outperform rating on the stock, though he cut his price target to $29 from $35. The revision followed a second quarter that came in below expectations on both revenue and bookings.
D-Wave posted Q2 revenue of $3.1 million against a consensus estimate of $4 million. Bookings were approximately $2.1 million, down 94% from the prior quarter, though up 59% from a year earlier.
The earnings per share loss was $0.10, missing the consensus estimate of $0.08.
Despite the soft numbers, Rakesh described D-Wave as “well positioned as the only dual-modality QC platform,” referencing its ability to develop both gate-model and annealing quantum computers.
The commercial side showed some brighter spots. D-Wave now has more than 100 customers, with commercial customers making up more than half of that total. Forbes Global 2000 companies accounted for 49% of first-half 2026 revenue, up from just 8% in the same period last year.
The company’s sales pipeline has grown more than 120% year to date. Two system sales are still on the books for 2026, both expected in the December quarter.
D-Wave also announced it received up to CAD $300,000 in funding from the National Research Council of Canada’s Applied Quantum Computing Challenge program. The funds will go toward developing annealing quantum computing software, including graph minor-embedding algorithms for its Zephyr topology and integration with its open-source Ocean software development kit.
On the hardware side, D-Wave is targeting a 17-qubit gate-model system by end of 2026 and a 181-qubit system by 2028. Longer term, it is aiming for 10 to 100 logical qubits between 2030 and 2032. Its Advantage3 annealing platform is being built toward a target of 100,000 qubits.
Remaining performance obligations fell 4% sequentially to $40.7 million.
Insider activity has been worth watching. CFO John Markovich sold around 328,752 shares in May at $27.70 per share. Director Rohit Ghai sold 13,518 shares in June. In total, insiders sold approximately $35.8 million worth of stock over the last quarter.
Institutional investors own 42.47% of the company. Several funds including CoreCap Advisors and Sigma Planning Corp added modestly to their positions in recent quarters.
Across Wall Street, QBTS carries a Strong Buy consensus based on 15 analyst ratings, with 14 Buys and one Hold. The average price target of $35.79 implies roughly 73% upside from current levels. Wedbush initiated coverage on August 3rd with an Outperform rating and a $40 price target.
The two expected system sales in December remain the near-term number to watch.
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