D-Wave Quantum (NYSE: QBTS) has lost nearly 40% of its value in 2026, yet Wall Street analysts remain almost unanimously bullish on the stock’s recovery potential.
The stock currently trades at $15.79, well below the consensus analyst price target of $34.65, implying roughly 119% upside from current levels.
Rosenblatt Securities analyst John McPeake holds the Street-high price target of $43.00, which would represent approximately 172% upside for investors buying at today’s price.
Of 17 analysts tracked, 1 rates QBTS a Strong Buy, 15 rate it a Buy, and 1 rates it a Hold, with zero Sell ratings on the stock.
D-Wave is unique in the quantum computing space as the only company simultaneously pursuing both annealing and gate-model quantum systems for commercial customers.
The company counts major enterprises including AT&T (NYSE: T) and Optum among its production customers, running real optimization workloads today rather than operating in purely experimental territory.
In January 2026, D-Wave acquired Quantum Circuits to add gate-model capability to its portfolio, though management does not expect significant gate-model cloud revenue until 2032.
The stock’s steep decline followed a disappointing second quarter, where revenue of $3.08 million came in 23.63% below the $4.03 million consensus estimate and was roughly flat year over year.
GAAP EPS of -$0.13 missed the -$0.0914 estimate, while operating expenses nearly doubled to $54.98 million and adjusted EBITDA loss grew 85% to $37.1 million.
Cash and investments fell to $546.2 million from $819.3 million, with more than 90% of that decline attributable to the approximately $250 million cash payment for Quantum Circuits.
Share count also expanded significantly, growing from 266.6 million to 358.7 million during fiscal 2025, adding dilution pressure on top of the revenue shortfall.
Despite those headwinds, D-Wave’s bookings picture tells a more encouraging story heading into the second half of the year.
First-half bookings reached $35.5 million compared to just $2.9 million a year earlier, and remaining performance obligations surged 668% to $40.7 million.
Approximately 57% of those obligations are expected to be recognized within the next 12 months, giving the bull case a concrete near-term revenue catalyst.
Management has guided for third-quarter revenue to be “up modestly” and fourth-quarter revenue to be “up significantly,” with two annealing systems likely shipping in the fourth quarter.
Rosenblatt’s thesis centers on D-Wave’s commercial annealing systems solving real optimization problems today, with its Leap platform positioned to generate high-margin recurring cloud revenue as customers scale from pilots to production.
The stock now sits 66% below its 52-week high of $46.75 and trades well below both its 50-day moving average of $18.14 and its 200-day moving average of $20.80.
On trailing revenue of $12.425 million, QBTS carries a price-to-sales ratio of 481.83, a valuation that demands significant revenue acceleration to justify even at today’s depressed share price.
Peers across the quantum computing sector also declined in 2026, but D-Wave recorded the sharpest year-to-date loss in the group, falling 39.62% while the S&P 500 gained 14.25%.
IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) is down 3.52% year to date at $43.33, Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ: RGTI) is down 31.51% at $15.17, and Quantum Computing Inc. (NASDAQ: QUBT) is down 23.39% at $7.86.
The fourth quarter now stands as the critical test for QBTS bulls, with both annealing system deliveries and backlog conversion needed to validate Rosenblatt’s $43.00 target as anything more than an optimistic projection.
