B. Riley Keeps Buy Ratings on IonQ, D-Wave and Rigetti Ahead of Quantum World Congress

IonQ has signed a contract to deliver its Superion 256-qubit trapped ion quantum computer to Florida International University, making FIU its flagship academic partner in Florida. The agreement adds to a run of recent announcements that also include IonQ's role at NVIDIA's Accelerated Quantum Research Center and a cybersecurity contract with Congruity360. The company reported Q1 2026 revenue of $64.7 million, raised full-year revenue guidance to $260 to $270 million, and ended the quarter with Remaining Performance Obligations of $470 million. About 60% of Q1 revenue came from commercial customers, 35% from international customers, and 35% from multi-product customers. IonQ's most followed valuation narrative pegs fair value at $48.00 per share against a last close of $43.29, implying roughly 10% undervaluation, while the stock trades at a P/B of 5.2x versus 4.8x for the broader US Semiconductor group and a peer average of 15.6x.

D-Wave Quantum entered the third quarter with a definitive agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce, providing access to up to $100 million in funding under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act. The agreement, signed Sept. 8, builds on a previously announced Letter of Intent and supports efforts to advance domestic quantum computing capabilities. First-half bookings reached $35.5 million, up 1,120% year over year, while production applications accounted for 37.3% of first-half QCaaS revenues. On Aug. 5, D-Wave reported a research advance published in Nature involving its superconducting dual-rail architecture and quantum error correction, and on Jul. 27 it signed an agreement with AT&T to expand AT&T's use of its quantum computing technology, with early work cutting network optimization processing time from about one hour to less than 15 seconds. Among peers, IonQ completed the SkyWater acquisition on July 31 and updated its 2026 revenue outlook to $450-$460 million, while Rigetti received finalized CHIPS R&D funding of up to $100 million in September. D-Wave shares have lost 55.3% over the past year, and the stock carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

Zapata Quantum has joined the IBM Quantum Network, the company announced, with plans to use IBM's quantum computers alongside its own use-case discovery and application development expertise. The Boston-based company, which trades over the counter under the ticker ZPTA, said the effort aims to close the quantum application gap by translating advances in quantum computing into mission-critical applications. Chief Executive Sumit Kapur said IBM's rapid progress toward fault-tolerant quantum computing brings that application gap into sharper focus, while Vice President of Strategy and Co-Founder Jonny Olson said superconducting qubits remain one of the most capable paths to advantage because their hardware is fast. The move builds on prior joint research between the two companies, including a landmark study published in Nature Biotechnology that produced experimentally validated candidates targeting KRAS and was named one of the journal's Top 10 Articles of 2025, as well as co-authored work in npj Quantum Information on variational quantum factoring. Zapata said insights from the network will inform Quantum Pilot, its hardware-agnostic platform that helps enterprises identify, prioritize and develop quantum applications as hardware matures.

D-Wave Quantum Inc. launched a beta program for its gate-model quantum computing simulator, offering select customers early access ahead of general availability. The simulator is built around D-Wave's dual-rail superconducting gate-model technology, which is designed to use error detection to deliver efficient quantum error correction with significantly lower hardware overhead as systems scale. Beta participants include BBVA, FirstQFM, Florida Atlantic University and the Julich Supercomputing Centre. The company said the program marks an important milestone in its gate-model development roadmap and lets customers experiment with error-aware programming and build quantum applications in preparation for its forthcoming gate-model systems.

Quantinuum secured a finalized US$100 million CHIPS R&D award from the U.S. Department of Commerce to support trapped ion quantum computer manufacturing in the United States. The company also announced new collaborations with Quanta Computer and Oracle tied to its trapped ion quantum hardware. As part of the Oracle tie-up, Quantinuum will place its Helios quantum computer inside Oracle data centers to support quantum cloud computing access. Quantinuum, a quantum computing hardware and software specialist in the IT industry, has a market cap of about US$12.7b. The company said the CHIPS R&D award and Oracle data center placement support its push to integrate quantum systems with AI and high performance computing through partners such as Oracle and HPE, though heavy reported losses and the risk of delays around its Sol and Apollo systems remain open issues.

IonQ announced a real-time quantum error correction decoder that runs complex workloads without slowing quantum computations. The company reported new deployments at the NVIDIA Accelerated Quantum Research Center, integrating its hardware into NVIDIA's quantum research stack, and disclosed a partnership with SDT in South Korea to support quantum computing access for regional enterprises and researchers. IonQ said the decoder handles benchmark circuits with up to 408 logical qubits and more than 31.5 million quantum operations with just 0.02% added time, running on a single off-the-shelf CPU while the quantum system keeps operating. IonQ, a US semiconductor player valued at about $17.4b, builds quantum computing systems for clients in the United States, Switzerland, and other regions. Investors will watch how many Superion 256 deployments move from contract to installed and active systems at sites like NVIDIA's research center, FIU and SDT's data center from 2027.