Rigetti burned $22.3M in Q2 operating cash, down from $25.6M a year ago. The quantum computing company is betting its 30-qubit Ankaa-3 system by year-end 2026 to land commercial customers.
Rigetti Computing burned $22.3 million in operating cash during the second quarter, down from $25.6 million a year earlier. The quantum computing company is narrowing its focus to a single product path.
The company ended June with $121.4 million in cash and marketable securities. CFO Jeffrey Bertelsen said that is enough to fund operations through the first quarter of 2028. Rigetti reported $2.6 million in revenue for the quarter, up from $2.4 million a year ago. The U.S. Department of Energy contract via the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy accounted for $1.8 million of that.
CEO Subodh Kulkarni said Rigetti is on track to deliver its 30-qubit Ankaa-3 system by the end of 2026. The machine, built on a 4-qubit tile design, would be the company's first system with error rates below 0.5% on two-qubit gates, he said. Customers in defense, energy and drug discovery have asked for that level of performance before they commit to larger deployments, Kulkarni said.
"We are seeing steady progress in our 30-qubit system, and we expect to deliver it by the end of this year," Kulkarni said.
Rigetti has paused development on its 84-qubit Ankaa-4 to focus resources on the smaller machine. Bertelsen said the decision cuts capital spending by roughly $8 million to $10 million this year. The company is preserving cash while it proves out the 4-qubit tile architecture.
The operating loss narrowed to $21.6 million from $24 million a year earlier. The net loss came in at $17.8 million. Gross margin on revenue was 38%, down from 44% in the same quarter last year, as the revenue mix shifted toward lower-margin government contracts.
Analysts on the call pressed Kulkarni on when Rigetti might land a commercial customer outside of government. He pointed to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, where Rigetti is one of a handful of companies competing for a Phase C award. That decision is expected in the fourth quarter of 2026. A win could bring a multiyear contract worth tens of millions, Kulkarni said.
"DARPA is the most rigorous customer we could ask for," Kulkarni said. "If we get through Phase C, that validates the technology in a way no other milestone can."
Rigetti also said it has begun shipping its Novera QPU, a 9-qubit system, to research customers. The company declined to name buyers but said the system is now generating recurring revenue from cloud access fees.
Shares of Rigetti fell 3.2% in after-hours trading following the report. The stock is down 41% this year.
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