D-Wave Quantum Inc. (QBTS) is a Technology stock trading at $16.44 (as of 2026-09-02), with a market capitalization of $6.07B. Figures are sourced from first-party U.S. SEC EDGAR filings and market data.
D-Wave Quantum Inc. provides quantum computing systems, along with related software tools and services. Its offerings include the Advantage quantum computer and the Ocean open-source programming toolkit, as well as cloud access to live quantum hardware and onboarding/professional services that support enterprise deployment.
Understand D-Wave Quantum Inc.: how it makes money
D-Wave Quantum builds and sells superconducting quantum computers (the Advantage system) plus cloud access (Leap) and open-source software (Ocean) to enterprises and research institutions. It earns revenue from a handful of multi-million-dollar system deliveries, cloud subscriptions, and professional services, but remains deeply in the red while the buyer base is still forming.
Each quantum system sale is lumpy, recognized over multiple quarters, and extremely capital-intensive to build, so revenue arrives in chunks while R&D and operations burn cash at a multiple of what comes in.
Business quality (Unprofitable): Deeply unprofitable with a negative operating margin of -1732% and negligible revenue; the company is in a pre-scale technology commercialization phase where survival depends on cash reserves rather than self-funding operations.
Bull case
Pipeline momentum accelerating: Management reports the sales pipeline more than doubled sequentially and average potential deal size also more than doubled, signaling a step-change in demand from enterprise and research buyers.
Cash funds multi-year runway: Cash and marketable securities totaled $588.4 million after the Quantum Circuits acquisition, giving D-Wave years of headroom to fund Advantage iterations without dilutive raises.
Real-world application proof emerging: A partner project (Shinogi) in the second phase produced ten times more desirable molecules than classical machine learning, a concrete demonstration that the hardware delivers a measurable edge in drug discovery workloads.
Bear case
Losses expanding every quarter: Net loss widened to $18.4 million and adjusted EBITDA loss reached $32.8 million, meaning the burn rate is accelerating even as pipeline grows; at this pace the $588 million cushion erodes within roughly five to six years.
Revenue timing obscures traction: System-sales revenue recognition can span multiple months or quarters, so headline revenue will remain lumpy and hard to interpret even as orders land; investors cannot linearly extrapolate a single delivery into run-rate.
Gate-model gap is structural: Management targets only 100 logical qubits via gate-model development by 2032, an extended roadmap that leaves D-Wave vulnerable if competing gate-model architectures (from IBM, Google, or startups) reach practical utility sooner.