Is Rigetti Computing the Best Quantum Computing Stock to Buy Right Now?

While artificial intelligence (AI) investing may be at the front of the market's mind, there is another emerging tech trend that could see huge growth in the coming years: quantum computing. Quantum computing has the potential to revolutionize every computing industry, including AI. One of the more popular investments in this realm is Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ: RGTI). But is it the best quantum computing stock to buy now?

Let's take a look at what Rigetti Computing is doing and see if it's worth your investment dollars.

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Rigetti Computing recently made a huge breakthrough

There is really one primary concern with the quantum computing industry right now: accuracy. The technology isn't accurate enough to be commercially viable, and that's the main roadblock every company in this sector is trying to solve. Rigetti recently made a huge breakthrough and announced that it achieved up to a 99.9% two-qubit gate fidelity. This means that when a calculation passes through two processing gates, there is a one in 1,000 chance that it produces an error.

While that sounds good, think of the thousands of processes your computer or phone is going through each second to read this article. There are over 1,000 characters in this article alone, and if one or two of those are incorrect or in the wrong spot, it could mess up the entire context of the article. That is the battle quantum computing firms are facing, and it's going to take a much more accurate device to become commercially viable.

One huge issue Rigetti is facing right now is that as the number of qubits in the system increases, its accuracy quickly declines. Its largest 108-qubit system only has a 99% two-qubit gate accuracy. Seeing accuracy decline as computing power increases isn't a good sign, and Rigetti has a lot of work to do, especially against its competition.

Another popular quantum computing stock is IonQ (NYSE: IONQ). It holds the world record with a two-qubit gate fidelity of 99.99%. The performance was achieved in its R&D lab, but will make its way into its 256-qubit system in 2026. So, IonQ will have a computer that has over double the computing capacity at 100 times the accuracy sometime this year.

This makes me question Rigetti's viability, and it may have dug itself too deep a hole to get out of. While Rigetti's accuracy breakthroughs are important, it's still well behind its peers in the quantum computing race. It will take a huge miracle to emerge from behind, and I doubt it can do it. I don't think Rigetti Computing is worth an investment, as there are far better quantum computing options out there, like IonQ.

Keithen Drury has positions in IonQ. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends IonQ. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.