Blog · October 11, 2026

What do quantum computing companies actually earn?

Four listed quantum computing companies took in about $280 million in the year to June 2026, and the stock market valued them at about $28 billion. Where the revenue comes from and where the money to keep going comes from, from their filings.

Four towers of white dots on a dotted floor, scaled to the market values of IonQ, D-Wave, Rigetti and Quantum Computing Inc. A thin bright layer at the base of each is a year of revenue on the same scale.

Very little so far, compared with what they are worth on the stock market. The four longest-listed quantum computing companies, IonQ, D-Wave, Rigetti and Quantum Computing Inc, took in about $280 million in revenue in the twelve months to June 2026. IonQ accounted for most of it. On October 9, 2026, the stock market valued the four at about $28 billion together. They are paid for mostly by selling new shares, not by customers.

Every figure here comes from the companies’ own filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, except share prices. This is a description of the businesses, not advice on whether to buy or sell anything.

Revenue and market value

Revenue is for the twelve months to June 30, 2026. Market value is at the close on October 9, 2026.

Company Revenue Market value
IonQ $246.5 million $15.9 billion
Rigetti $13.4 million $4.7 billion
D-Wave $12.4 million $5.4 billion
Quantum Computing Inc $9.8 million $1.7 billion

One way to compare them is market value per dollar of yearly revenue. It shows how much of each price is a bet on future sales rather than a payment for current ones.

D-Wave

about $437 per $1 of revenue · Q2 2026 results

Rigetti

about $350 per $1 of revenue · Q2 2026 results

Quantum Computing Inc

about $171 per $1 of revenue · Q2 2026 results

IonQ

about $64 per $1 of revenue · Q2 2026 results

Market value divided by revenue for the 12 months to June 2026. Full width is 450.

Where the revenue comes from

IonQ is the only one with more than a few million dollars a quarter: $80.1 million in the second quarter of 2026, up from $20.7 million a year earlier. Much of the growth came from buying other companies, paid for largely in IonQ shares. The acquisitions span networking, sensing and satellite imaging, and IonQ doesn’t report how much of its revenue comes from quantum computing itself. It expects $280 million to $290 million for 2026 without counting its latest acquisition.

D-Wave builds annealers, quantum machines made mainly for optimization problems rather than general-purpose computing. It sold its first complete system, to the Jülich research centre in Germany, for $13.7 million in early 2025. That one sale made up more than half its revenue for the year. Without system sales, its revenue runs at about $3 million a quarter.

Rigetti’s revenue fell in 2025, to $7.1 million from $10.8 million the year before. It comes from selling small systems, including an order of about $8.4 million from India’s C-DAC, and from cloud access. A US Commerce Department announcement of “up to $100 million” is a letter of intent, not revenue.

Quantum Computing Inc had $682,000 of revenue in 2025, from photonics chips rather than quantum computing as such. It holds about $1.3 billion in cash after a $750 million share sale in late 2025, which is most of its market value.

Where the money comes from

All four pay their way mainly by selling new shares.

  • IonQ raised $2.0 billion in one offering in October 2025.
  • D-Wave raised $536.7 million by selling shares in 2025, against revenue of $24.6 million. It lost $355.1 million that year.
  • Rigetti raised $350 million by selling shares in 2025. It lost $216.2 million.

Reported losses can swing wildly for reasons that involve no cash. IonQ lost $1.87 billion in the second quarter of 2026, but $1.65 billion of that was an accounting change in the value of warrants, rights it had sold to buy shares later at a fixed price. When the share price rises, those rights count as a bigger liability. Its loss from actually running the business was $337 million.

Newer listings and the big companies

Four more companies listed in 2026. Quantinuum, part-owned by Honeywell, had $8.0 million of revenue in its second quarter and raised $1.7 billion in its June listing. Infleqtion had $13.5 million, Xanadu $1.5 million, and Horizon Quantum almost none.

IBM, Google and Microsoft don’t report quantum revenue separately. IBM says it has signed close to $1 billion of quantum business since 2017. That counts contracts signed, which can be paid out over many years, not revenue.

Across the whole industry, McKinsey estimates quantum computing companies earned more than $1 billion worldwide in 2025, while investors put $12.6 billion into start-ups that year.

Disputed claims

Some of these numbers have been challenged. In February 2026, the short seller Wolfpack Research alleged that most of IonQ’s 2022 to 2024 revenue came from congressional earmarks, and that the company counted contracts at more than their funded value. IonQ called the claims false and misleading. In January 2025, Capybara Research called Quantum Computing Inc a fraud and alleged undisclosed deals with related parties, and lawsuits from shareholders followed. Short sellers profit when a stock falls, so their reports are a claim to check, not a finding.

What to make of it

These are research companies with a few products, valued as if large markets were already in reach. That is common for a technology before it works at scale, and some of these companies may grow into their prices. The numbers show where things stand now: customers spend a few hundred million dollars a year with them, much of it from governments and research centres, while shareholders supply billions.

For anyone reading the news, revenue is a useful check on a breakthrough announcement, such as a claim of quantum advantage. It shows how many people are paying for quantum computing today.

Sources