Two Quantum Computing Stocks Are Starting to Pull Ahead of the Pack

With second-quarter earnings now in the books for quantum computing stocks, it appears that two are starting to pull away from the pack: IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) and Quantinuum (NASDAQ: QNT). This perhaps should not be surprising, as these are the two companies using a trapped-ion approach, which has thus far proven to be the most accurate. IonQ has reached 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity, while Quantinuum has achieved 99.92%, putting them both far ahead of the pack in this metric.

This edge in accuracy is also starting to show up in their earnings results.

Image source: Getty Images.

IonQ: Surging revenue

IonQ's Q2 revenue soared 287% to $80.1 million, which was well ahead of the $66.4 million average estimate. Importantly, 60% of its revenue came from commercial, non-government customers, showing its solutions are moving beyond lab experiments. Multi-product sales, meanwhile, jumped 40% and accounted for about a quarter of its revenue.

Its order backlog rose to $485 million, up from $122 million a year ago, and it raised its full-year revenue forecast to $280 million to $290 million, excluding its recently closed SkyWater acquisition. The acquisition of the foundry is expected to accelerate its quantum roadmap, as it looks to eventually develop 10,000-qubit chips by 2027. The company also highlighted its move from lasers to its proprietary Electronic Qubit Control (EQC) technology, which uses microwave antennas built directly on its chips. This will help it scale as it lowers costs and reduces energy consumption.

Quantinuum: Oracle partnership is a game changer

Quantinuum's Q2 revenue surged 279% to $8 million, driven by growth in its cloud business, but the highlight of its earnings report was its strategic partnership with Oracle. Its Helios system will be integrated with Oracle's cloud infrastructure to give customers a quantum-artificial intelligence framework.

The company's order backlog, meanwhile, climbed to $74 million and is projected to reach at least $120 million by year-end. Meanwhile, Quantinuum is looking for its new Sol in 2027 to reach 99.999% logical fidelity. It projects 2026 revenue between $28 million and $32 million, and more than doubling in 2027.

The rest of the pack

The other quantum names largely reported mixed results. Infleqtion's (NYSE: INFQ) revenue jumped 116% to $12.6 million, and it raised its full-year outlook to $43 million. However, its backlog was up only slightly sequentially at about $21 million. The company has a more mature quantum sensing business, while its neutral-atom technology, which is similar to trapped-ion but with the charge removed, holds promise. It is looking to demonstrate 30 logical qubits on its system by the end of 2026.

D-Wave Quantum (NASDAQ: QBTS), known for its annealing systems, reported revenue of $3.1 million for the quarter, little changed. It expects Q3 revenue to be similar to Q2, before seeing a big jump in Q4. Importantly, the company is getting into full-fledged gate-based quantum computers, and it said its superconducting dual-rail qubit architecture hit 99.9% two-qubit fidelity. While it showed great speed, in the world of computing, that's a very wide accuracy gap compared to IonQ and Quantinuum.

Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ: RGTI) reported revenue growth of 185% year over year to $5.1 million. However, like D-Wave, its system also trails significantly in accuracy. Its Cepheus-1-108Q currently operates at a median two-qubit gate fidelity of about 99.1%, while its nine-qubit system has achieved 99.8%. While its systems are fast, it really needs to make big strides in accuracy to be considered a serious contender in the quantum race.

Accuracy is winning

Based on their backlogs and revenue, IonQ and Quantinuum are showing that in the race to quantum supremacy, accuracy is more important than speed. IonQ is the leader, while Quantinuum looks poised to make a big leap. That makes these two the stocks to own in the segment right now.

Geoffrey Seiler has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends IonQ and Oracle. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.