D-Wave Quantum (QBTS) stock went down after an earnings report that disappointed the market, even though there was considerable excitement leading up to it. The stock has struggled this year, unable to repeat the stellar performance of 2025. But looking at just the earnings report for a pre-commercial-scale quantum company isn't the best way to judge progress.
A better way is to look at the product, and that's where investors may have lost a headline from last week amid the earnings noise. Just a day before the earnings report, the company announced technological progress that helps it move one step closer to commercial quantum computing. To understand what just happened, let's take a look at the bottleneck that was stopping researchers from deploying quantum computing at scale.
The barrier to useful quantum computing isn't the qubit count. The problem is that as qubit count increases, the error rates compound, making it impossible to reliably deploy these systems at scale. Elon Musk Said Tesla Short Sellers Would Be 'Obliterated' Even Bill Gates — Yet They've Made $9 Billion This Year Shorting the Stock Sergey Brin Wants Google to Double Down on Gemini.
What That Means for GOOGL Stock. Alphabet Stock to $515: 3 Reasons the Bull Case Is Getting Stronger Stop Missing Market Moves: Get the FREE Barchart Brief – your midday dose of stock movers, trending sectors, and actionable trade ideas, delivered right to your inbox. D-Wave Quantum's claim is that this breakthrough removes one of the greatest obstacles to error correction, making a commercially viable, fault-tolerant system far more achievable.
The CEO, Alan Baratz, said the development proves the company is on the right track and that a commercial fault-tolerant quantum machine is both practical and achievable. Founded in 1999, D-Wave Quantum develops quantum computing systems, software, and cloud-based services for customers around the world. The company's offerings include Advantage and Advantage 2 quantum computers, Leap quantum cloud service, Ocean open-source developer tools, and hybrid quantum-classical computing solutions.
Its technology helps businesses solve complex problems in areas such as manufacturing, finance, logistics, and drug discovery. D-Wave Quantum has lagged the broader market over both the past year and year to date. Over the last 12 months, the stock gained around 17%, compared with the S&P 500's ($SPX) 20% return.
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