Rigetti Computing, Inc.
Combined average of Moat (AI Resilience), Growth, and Valuation scores.
Moat Score
A narrow, unproven moat from full-stack superconducting expertise, an in-house chip fab, scarce quantum talent, and government relationships — a genuine technical franchise, but one a clear step behind IonQ on fidelity, with revenue that actually shrank in 2025.
Rigetti's durability is engineering-, fab-, and talent-based — not yet commercial. Three early-stage pillars, all behind the frontier:
- Vertically Integrated Fab & Stack: Rigetti operates its own superconducting-chip foundry (Fab-1) and a full stack from chip design to the Rigetti QCS cloud and the Novera on-prem QPU. Owning fabrication lets it iterate its multi-chiplet architecture faster than fabless rivals — a real differentiator, but capital-intensive and still producing only single-digit-millions of revenue.
- Scarce Superconducting Talent: Rigetti is one of a handful of teams that can design, fabricate, and operate superconducting quantum processors at cadence. This expertise is among the scarcest in the economy and AI-resilient — AI augments but cannot replace it — though it is execution capability, not a structural lock-in, and the team is smaller and less capitalised than IonQ's.
- Government & Ecosystem Ties: An AFRL quantum-networking contract, Innovate UK QEC funding, NVIDIA's NVQLink integration, and a US Dept. of Commerce CHIPS Act LOI (up to $100M) give Rigetti scarce government pedigree and cloud reach (Amazon Braket). But it was not initially selected for DARPA QBI Stage B, and its franchise is nascent versus larger, better-funded competitors.
Moat Verdict
Rigetti's applicable moats — full-stack superconducting engineering, an in-house fab, scarce talent, and government ties — are AI-resilient because AI cannot replicate the underlying hardware physics or fabrication know-how. It carries none of the AI-vulnerable software moats (no learned interface, business-logic, data, transaction, or system-of-record lock-in), so AI cannot erode what durability it has. The blunt limitation is that the moat is narrow and unproven, and unlike IonQ the near-term evidence is negative: revenue shrank in 2025, most moat categories are N/A or weakened, and a ~$5.4B market cap rests almost entirely on a scaling roadmap that has yet to convert into a real business. A credible superconducting effort, but a speculative, second-tier bet within an already-speculative group.
49.3 resilient · 40.2 vulnerable · 80/20 = 47.5 · = 48
Open a moat to read its note.
Rigetti's processors are accessed via open SDKs and cloud (QCS, Amazon Braket); there is no high-switching-cost interface customers master over years.
Rigetti ships a full software stack, but quantum toolchains are largely portable across backends and standards are unsettled — it is not a proprietary business-logic lock-in embedded in customer operations.
Rigetti does not monetise gated access to a public dataset.
Designing, fabricating and operating superconducting quantum processors at cadence takes scarce engineering talent. IBM, Google, Quantinuum and the other quantum teams hire from the same small pool, and no figure shows the bench blocks entry, so it rates intact.
Rigetti bundles fabrication, cloud (QCS), and the Novera on-prem QPU, but each layer is early and substitutable — vertical integration is a real direction, not yet a lock-in.
In-house fabrication (Fab-1) and multi-chiplet iteration generate proprietary process and calibration data, but the deployed base and dataset are small and improve Rigetti's own machines rather than being a monetised product.
An AFRL contract, Innovate UK funding, and a US Dept. of Commerce CHIPS Act LOI are scarce, slow-to-earn government assets that are AI-resilient — but the franchise is nascent, and Rigetti was not initially selected for DARPA QBI Stage B.
an additional quantum-hardware customer does not yet make the platform more valuable to others; there is no meaningful network dynamic at this stage.
Rigetti does not sit in a payment or transaction layer of customers' daily operations.
it is not the authoritative record for any external business function.
Pre-scale business: no unit-cost lead exists yet, and none is credited on a roadmap.
No brand premium: customers buy on capability and price, and the name has not yet been tested through a cycle.
Combined average of Moat (AI Resilience), Growth, and Valuation scores.
Moat Score
A narrow, unproven moat from full-stack superconducting expertise, an in-house chip fab, scarce quantum talent, and government relationships — a genuine technical franchise, but one a clear step behind IonQ on fidelity, with revenue that actually shrank in 2025.
Growth Score
Rigetti's revenue has turned after a down 2025 (FY2025 $7.1M from $10.8M): Q1 2026 revenue was $4.4M (from $1.5M) and Q2 $5.1M (+185% YoY, +17% QoQ), so H1 2026 alone ($9.5M) already exceeds all of 2025. The driver is on-premises hardware — 9-qubit Novera systems and QPUs — with the ~$8.4M C-DAC 108-qubit system slated for H2 2026 deployment. There is still no formal revenue guidance, and the base is tiny and project-based, so a few orders swing the year. Rigetti is well funded ($541.3M of cash and investments, no debt) against a ~$16M quarterly non-GAAP net loss; survival is not the question — whether lumpy system sales compound into a real commercial business, on a roadmap to >1,000 qubits by end-2027, is.
Valuation Score
At ~$16.25 (~$5.4B) Rigetti trades at roughly 750× trailing sales against declining revenue and persistent operating losses — arguably the richest valuation-to-fundamentals ratio of the quantum pure-plays. The price sits above our $12 base case and about a quarter of the way into the $30 bull case, near the average analyst target of ~$29–30 but with essentially no margin of safety. The ~$569M net cash (~$1.70/share) is a genuine floor but a small fraction of the market cap; almost the entire value is a bet on the superconducting roadmap converting into commercial revenue it has not yet demonstrated.
The Full-Stack Superconductor
Rigetti's durability is engineering-, fab-, and talent-based — not yet commercial. Three early-stage pillars, all behind the frontier:
- Vertically Integrated Fab & Stack: Rigetti operates its own superconducting-chip foundry (Fab-1) and a full stack from chip design to the Rigetti QCS cloud and the Novera on-prem QPU. Owning fabrication lets it iterate its multi-chiplet architecture faster than fabless rivals — a real differentiator, but capital-intensive and still producing only single-digit-millions of revenue.
- Scarce Superconducting Talent: Rigetti is one of a handful of teams that can design, fabricate, and operate superconducting quantum processors at cadence. This expertise is among the scarcest in the economy and AI-resilient — AI augments but cannot replace it — though it is execution capability, not a structural lock-in, and the team is smaller and less capitalised than IonQ's.
- Government & Ecosystem Ties: An AFRL quantum-networking contract, Innovate UK QEC funding, NVIDIA's NVQLink integration, and a US Dept. of Commerce CHIPS Act LOI (up to $100M) give Rigetti scarce government pedigree and cloud reach (Amazon Braket). But it was not initially selected for DARPA QBI Stage B, and its franchise is nascent versus larger, better-funded competitors.
Moat Verdict
Rigetti's applicable moats — full-stack superconducting engineering, an in-house fab, scarce talent, and government ties — are AI-resilient because AI cannot replicate the underlying hardware physics or fabrication know-how. It carries none of the AI-vulnerable software moats (no learned interface, business-logic, data, transaction, or system-of-record lock-in), so AI cannot erode what durability it has. The blunt limitation is that the moat is narrow and unproven, and unlike IonQ the near-term evidence is negative: revenue shrank in 2025, most moat categories are N/A or weakened, and a ~$5.4B market cap rests almost entirely on a scaling roadmap that has yet to convert into a real business. A credible superconducting effort, but a speculative, second-tier bet within an already-speculative group.
49.3 resilient · 40.2 vulnerable · 80/20 = 47.5 · = 48
Open a moat to read its note.
Rigetti's processors are accessed via open SDKs and cloud (QCS, Amazon Braket); there is no high-switching-cost interface customers master over years.
Rigetti ships a full software stack, but quantum toolchains are largely portable across backends and standards are unsettled — it is not a proprietary business-logic lock-in embedded in customer operations.
Rigetti does not monetise gated access to a public dataset.
Designing, fabricating and operating superconducting quantum processors at cadence takes scarce engineering talent. IBM, Google, Quantinuum and the other quantum teams hire from the same small pool, and no figure shows the bench blocks entry, so it rates intact.
Rigetti bundles fabrication, cloud (QCS), and the Novera on-prem QPU, but each layer is early and substitutable — vertical integration is a real direction, not yet a lock-in.
In-house fabrication (Fab-1) and multi-chiplet iteration generate proprietary process and calibration data, but the deployed base and dataset are small and improve Rigetti's own machines rather than being a monetised product.
An AFRL contract, Innovate UK funding, and a US Dept. of Commerce CHIPS Act LOI are scarce, slow-to-earn government assets that are AI-resilient — but the franchise is nascent, and Rigetti was not initially selected for DARPA QBI Stage B.
an additional quantum-hardware customer does not yet make the platform more valuable to others; there is no meaningful network dynamic at this stage.
Rigetti does not sit in a payment or transaction layer of customers' daily operations.
it is not the authoritative record for any external business function.
Pre-scale business: no unit-cost lead exists yet, and none is credited on a roadmap.
No brand premium: customers buy on capability and price, and the name has not yet been tested through a cycle.
Growth Analysis
Growth Drivers
Key Risk
Rigetti's revenue is a handful of lumpy hardware deals behind a multi-billion market cap. If chiplet scaling slips, if the >1,000-qubit 2027 roadmap misses, or if system orders fail to recur, revenue falls back toward its 2025 level and the valuation has no fundamental support above its ~$541M cash. This is the quantum cohort's shared risk — commercially useful fault tolerance arriving later than priced — graded by exposure: Rigetti has no production workload that stands apart from gate-model progress, so it stays severe with IonQ and QCi.
Score Derivation
86.7 base + 1.3 trajectory + 4 margin − 15 risk = 77
Base 86.7 (20–30% CAGR, midpoint 25%, decaying hard from H1's +188% YoY off a ~$3M half-year base) + 1.3 trajectory (on-prem systems accelerating; cloud and government stable: (1 − 0) / 3 × 4) + 4 expanding margin (gross margin 31% in Q1 to ~43% in Q2 2026; operating loss ~590% of revenue to ~550%) − 15 severe risk. The estimate rises from 15–25% because the 2025 revenue decline that held it down has reversed in two measured quarters — an observed fact belongs in cagrEstimate — while the 2025 decline keeps it below IONQ's. The 'Reported Revenue Base' driver (decelerating) is gone: FY2025's decline is superseded by H1 2026, and total revenue is not a separate line. Severity stays severe with IONQ and QUBT on the shared fault-tolerance-timing risk. The formula computed 64 on the old inputs = 77
Price Scenarios (12–24 Months)
Valuation Analysis
P/E is omitted — Rigetti is deeply loss-making (Q1 2026 operating loss $(26.0)M; the +$33.1M GAAP net income is a non-cash warrant gain) with no profitability in sight. Valuation rests entirely on price/sales (~750× trailing) and roadmap credibility, and revenue actually declined in 2025 — so even the sales-multiple denominator is shrinking. The premium is paid for the fab, the talent, and >1,000-qubit optionality, not any current business. $12 (base) — well below the current price; unsupported by fundamentals, with upside entirely roadmap-contingent.
Where We Are vs Targets
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The market stops paying 750× sales for a shrinking-revenue quantum name: milestones slip, orders stay lumpy, and the stock re-rates toward its cash value as speculative capital exits.
- The >150-qubit (late 2026) or >1,000-qubit (2027) chiplet milestones slip, undercutting the scaling thesis
- Revenue stays flat-to-down as hardware orders fail to convert into recurring QCaaS revenue
- A 'quantum winter' compresses the multiple toward cash value (~$1.70/share), amplified by continued ATM and CHIPS-related dilution
Rigetti delivers the near-term orders (Novera, C-DAC) and roughly hits its late-2026 fidelity milestone, but revenue stays small and the market pays a cooling-but-still-speculative multiple, leaving the stock range-bound below its highs.
- The $5.7M Novera and $8.4M C-DAC orders convert on schedule, returning revenue to modest year-on-year growth
- Cepheus-class systems reach >150 qubits at ~99.7% fidelity by late 2026, keeping Rigetti technically credible
- Forward price/sales compresses as the market waits for the >1,000-qubit 2027 milestone to prove the scaling curve
The chiplet flywheel inflects: Rigetti hits >1,000 qubits with improving fidelity, orders accelerate into recurring revenue, and the market re-rates it as a credible superconducting scaler alongside the mega-cap efforts.
- The multi-chiplet architecture reaches >1,000 qubits near the end-2027 target with error rates halving on schedule
- Government funding (CHIPS Act LOI, AFRL) and NVIDIA NVQLink integration convert into a durable, growing contract book
- Operating losses narrow as system sales and QCaaS scale, letting the market underwrite a platform premium rather than pure optionality