Rigetti Reports Q2 Revenue of $5.1 Million, Up From $1.8 Million

On Thursday, Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ: RGTI ) discussed second-quarter financial results during its earnings call. The full transcript is provided below. This transcript is brought to you APIs. For real-time access to our entire catalog, please visit for a consultation.

8 million in Q2 2025, driven by Novera QPU sales. S. Department of Commerce for potential funding of up to $100 million to accelerate quantum computing R&D. Rigetti continues to advance its CPS-1108Q system, maintaining high fidelity and gate speed, with plans to scale to 1,000 qubits over the next three years.

Strategic partnerships expanded, including a collaboration with HPE and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center to develop a hybrid quantum-classical supercomputer. 3 million in cash and investments, maintaining no debt, and sees sufficient capital to meet future milestones. Full Transcript OPERATOR Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Rigetti Computing Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference call.

At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised.

To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Subodh Kulkarni, CEO of Rigetti Computing. Please go ahead.

Subodh Kulkarni, President and CEO Good afternoon and thank you for joining us for Rigetti's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. I'm pleased to be joined today by our Chief Financial Officer Jeff Bertelsen, who will walk you through our financial results in more detail following my overview. We appreciate your continued interest in Rigetti and look forward to answering your questions at the conclusion of our prepared remarks. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that today's call, along with our second quarter 2026 press release, contains forward-looking statements.

These statements reflect our current expectations, objectives, and underlying assumptions regarding our outlook and future operating results, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These risks and uncertainties are described in more detail in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, our Form 10-Q filing for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, and other periodic reports filed from time to time with the SEC.

Rigetti undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during this call except as required by law. During today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. For details on these measures and reconciliations to comparable GAAP measures, please refer to today's earnings release on our investor relations website at and to the 8-K furnished with the SEC. Before I dive into the quarter, I want to frame our discussion around three key takeaways.

First, we continue to demonstrate technical leadership with our CPS-1108Q systems, including ongoing progress to improve the performance of our 108-qubit CPS-1108Q platform. S. Department of Commerce for up to $100 million in funding over three years further validates our superconducting chiplet-based approach and strengthens our ability to invest against our roadmap to quantum advantage. Third, we recently announced an expanded collaboration with HPE and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center to develop a hybrid quantum-classical supercomputer, reflecting growing demand for our approach and positioning Rigetti to deliver differentiated quantum-enhanced HPC solutions.

Q2 was another important proof point in our strategy to combine technical progress with real-world access and long-term strategic partnerships. Quantum computing remains a long-cycle opportunity, but we are increasingly seeing the ecosystem coalesce around platforms that can scale in a practical way and that are available to users where they already run their workloads. We believe Rigetti is well positioned in the current environment for three reasons. We are focused on superconducting gate-based quantum computing, which offers a combination of scalability and speed that is difficult to replicate with other modalities.

We are pursuing an open modular architecture that allows us to integrate innovative solutions from partners to advance our technology faster, such as QEC technology from Riverlane and transduction technology from QphoX. We pioneered and continue to lead in chiplet-based architectures, which we believe provide a more practical path to scaling to 1,000 qubits and beyond than monolithic approaches. Let me start with our technology and product progress. CPS-1108Q remains one of the highest qubit-count, generally available gate-based quantum computers in the world and the largest modular quantum computing system on the market today.

The system is built from 12 interconnected nine-qubit chiplets and is accessible to customers via Rigetti Quantum Cloud Services and through Amazon Braket, Microsoft Azure Quantum, and qBraid. We are just one of three companies, including IBM and Google, who have delivered gate-based systems with over 100 qubits, and we believe that our modular approach gives us a strong advantage on the path towards higher qubit-count systems. 1%.

With gate speeds around 60 ns, these performance levels at the 100-plus qubit scale are meaningful, and our teams remain focused on improving fidelity throughout 2026 as we refine chip design, materials, and fabrication processes and incorporate learnings from our R&D platforms. From a systems engineering perspective, our work this quarter extended beyond adding qubits. We continue to mitigate coupling interactions between tunable couplers that become more pronounced beyond the 100-qubit scale and to address coherence time limitations that are now the primary constraint on fidelity.

As we discussed with investors in May, our current coherence times are in the 25 to 30 microsecond range, and we are executing on a set of chip design and material initiatives intended to roughly double or triple those times over the next several years. This includes joint IP with Fermilab, where capping niobium superconducting contacts with tantalum has demonstrated meaningful coherence time improvements in fundamental experiments, and we are now incorporating those learnings into production chip designs.

We are also refining deposition, oxidation, and etch processes to smooth interfaces in the Josephson junction area, which we believe will further improve coherence and ultimately gate fidelities. Beyond CPS-1108Q, we remain on track with the chiplet-based roadmap we laid out earlier this year and have begun investing in dilution refrigeration and infrastructure that can support 1,000-qubit systems. 9%, and gate speeds below 40 nanoseconds in roughly three years. S.

Department of Commerce letter of intent we announced on May 21st. Under this LOI, the Department has selected Rigetti for a potential award of up to $100 million in funding over three years to accelerate superconducting quantum computing R&D that addresses key technical challenges in scaling and advancing our systems. The contemplated transaction structure includes the Department receiving an equity stake in Rigetti consistent with the total amount of funding, and the funding itself would be allocated under the CHIPS Research and Development Office Broad Agency Announcement pursuant to the CHIPS Act. S.

leadership in this field. It also reflects the Administration's broader CHIPS R&D investments in quantum computing and related technologies designed to build domestic industry, create high-paying jobs, and strengthen technological resilience. For Rigetti, this LOI is strategically significant in several ways. It will allow us to tackle key scaling bottlenecks more rapidly associated with multi-chip architectures.

It would enable us to accelerate multiple generations of superconducting quantum processors and associated control electronics at Fab-1, our dedicated quantum device manufacturing facility. S. Government at a time when global investment in quantum computing is increasing and geopolitical competition in this domain is intensifying. It is important to emphasize that the LOI is not yet a definitive agreement.

Any final structure will also include issuance of securities to the Department and will be subject to customary approvals and conditions. We view this prospective partnership as aligned with our long-term strategy and our commitment to disciplined capital deployment. Jeff will provide additional context on how we are thinking about this funding opportunity within our broader capital framework. Turning to customer momentum and market traction, our strategy is to meet customers where they are across public cloud, hybrid infrastructure, and dedicated quantum systems on the cloud.

Rigetti Quantum Cloud Services, Amazon Braket, Microsoft Azure Quantum, and qBraid provide global access to our systems, including CPS-1108Q. We continue to see engagement from researchers and enterprises seeking to experiment on one of the most capable generally available gate-based platforms, where they benefit from ease of use and consistent uptime. In parallel, we are building a growing base of on-premises system deployments. Earlier this year we outlined three systems targeted for delivery in 2026: two 9-qubit Novera systems and a 108-qubit system for C-DAC in India.

We remain on track and are seeing additional demand for Novera QPUs from national labs and universities, with recent wins including the University of Saskatchewan and a research arm of a large Japanese conglomerate. These deployments deepen technical engagement, create multi-year usage pathways, and generate high-value feedback that informs our roadmap. At this stage of the market, we are prioritizing customers committed to active experimentation and collaboration, and we are deliberate in how we build those relationships. As part of this customer momentum, we recently expanded our collaboration with HPE and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.

Rigetti will deliver a 9-qubit Novera quantum computing system into PSC's new Tanger Lab testbed, which is being funded by a National Science Foundation grant. Working with HPE, this deployment is designed to integrate the Novera system with an HPE-powered supercomputing environment so that researchers and industry users can develop and test hybrid quantum-classical workloads on real hardware. We view this as an important step in moving our HPE relationship from early experimentation toward commercially relevant quantum-enabled HPC solutions.

More broadly, global investment in quantum computing continues to expand, led by governments and national labs and increasingly complemented by commercial interest. Outside the United States we are seeing structured programs such as the UK government's six-year Procure initiative, where we intend to invest up to $100 million over time in systems, talent, and infrastructure. In India, our 108-qubit C-DAC award reflects national-level interest in superconducting platforms, and across Europe and Asia we are seeing a growing number of coordinated quantum initiatives.

Commercial revenue remains early, but engagement is increasing across industries such as materials, logistics, and financial services as they explore hybrid and quantum-inspired workloads. As system performance improves and the industry moves closer to quantum advantage, we expect commercial adoption to build on the government and research foundation in place today. Let me briefly connect these developments back to our long-term roadmap. We remain focused on a clear sequence of trials designed to position Rigetti to reach quantum advantage in roughly three years.

5% later this year while maintaining our gate speed advantages. Beyond that, we are working toward deploying higher-qubit systems that leverage our chiplet-based architecture as the foundation for scaling beyond 1,000 qubits, with fidelities and speed enabling error-mitigated and eventually fault-tolerant computation. In support of this roadmap, we continue to invest in Fab-1 and associated refrigeration infrastructure, as well as partnerships with organizations such as Riverlane, Quanta, and QphoX to integrate innovative solutions into the stack.

The prospective CHIPS Act funding would further reinforce our ability to execute on multiple generations of processors while maintaining prudent capital discipline. We intend to update our published technology roadmap later this year once we have additional operational data from CPS-1108Q and clearer visibility into subsequent system deployments. Our objective is to provide investors with a transparent view of the milestones that matter most for quantum advantage, including specific targets for qubit count, fidelity, coherence time, and gate speed.

With that overview, I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Jeff Bertelsen, to discuss our financial results and capital deployment in more detail. Jeff Bertelsen, Chief Financial Officer Thank you, Subodh, and good afternoon, everyone. I will spend a few minutes walking through our second quarter 2026 financial results, our balance sheet and liquidity, and how we are thinking about capital deployment as we continue to execute on the roadmap Subodh described, including the potential implications of the Department of Commerce LOI. 8 million in the second quarter of 2025.

The year-over-year increase was driven by on-premises Novera QPU sales, reflecting recognition of previously announced Novera purchase orders. Gross margin for the quarter was approximately 43% compared to 31% in the second quarter of 2025, with variability driven by contract mix and pricing and the relative contribution from Novera QPU sales. 4 million in the same period last year, with spending concentrated in research and development including engineering headcount, fabrication, chip design and control, electronics development, as well as investments in refrigeration and infrastructure to support higher qubit-count systems. 6 million in the second quarter of 2025.

9 million in the prior-year period on a GAAP basis. 7 million in the prior-year period, with results again impacted by non-cash fair value adjustments to derivative warrant and earn-out liabilities. As we have said previously, these fair value adjustments can introduce significant quarter-to-quarter volatility into our GAAP results and do not affect how we operate the business or allocate capital. 04 per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2025.

Let me provide a bit more color on revenue drivers and how we are thinking about the remainder of the year. As we discussed on our prior call, we expected strong year-over-year revenue growth in the first half of 2026 driven by the previously announced Novera purchase orders we received late last year and earlier in 2026. 4 million CDAC order for an on-premises 108-qubit system in India, which we still expect to recognize in the fourth quarter of this year following installation and performance acceptance testing. More broadly, our revenue profile continues to be influenced by the timing of system deliveries and government-funded projects.

We view this variability as inherent to the current stage of the quantum computing market and not as a driver of our long-term capital allocation or technology strategy. 8 million as of December 31, 2025. We continue to operate with no debt, and given our current operating profile, we believe our capital position provides sufficient runway to execute against our technology and system deployment milestones, including continued progress on scale, fidelity, system integration, and our planned investment in the United Kingdom.