Rigetti Computing (RGTI 0.36%) is one of the more popular quantum computing start-up stocks on the market. It currently trades for around $11 per share, so if it reached $20, the stock would nearly double.
While that may sound like a tall task, Rigetti Computing actually hit $20 during the first few days of the year before selling off. So, can the stock return to its all-time high before the end of 2025?
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Rigetti Computing is still solving the quantum computing accuracy problem
Rigetti Computing is a quantum computing start-up focused on offering a full-stack quantum computing setup, which includes its quantum processing units (QPUs) and the software necessary to use them. This is a key investment point for Rigetti, as it could become a complete quantum computing solution should it win the quantum computing arms race.
The biggest challenge facing quantum computing right now is computing accuracy, which is an inherent problem in all quantum computing devices, regardless of who manufactures them.
Traditional computers process information in bits, which are either a 0 or a 1. This makes the answer black or white, as there's no room for interpretation. However, quantum computing uses qubits, which can better be described as a range of answers from 0 to 1. While a qubit will collapse an answer down to a 0 or a 1 when it's measured, the ability for an answer to exist in a superposition between a 0 and a 1 makes quantum computing more potent than traditional computing. The nuance of the data bits makes them much more powerful for certain types of computing work.
However, because we cannot measure the qubit's superposition, the calculation is open to errors. There are multiple ways to make the calculation more accurate, and each company takes its own approach. This will be the deciding factor for which quantum computing companies are successful and which aren't.
Rigetti Computing has taken the superconducting approach, which involves cooling the particles to a hundredth of a Kelvin, essentially absolute zero. This slows the particle's movement down to allow it to be measured, and this technology isn't a thing of the future; it's available today.
Rigetti has a quantum processing unit that starts at less than $1 million
Rigetti's Novera QPU is available to purchase, and is a 9-qubit QPU that a company can purchase starting at $900,000. It's Rigetti's most advanced offering to date, and delivers a 99.4% 2-qubit gate fidelity.
Although the company hasn't sold many of these, this demonstrates that quantum computing is available for use today when needed. Right now, it's mostly an area of academic research, but it demonstrates that Rigetti is moving toward offering a product that can be used on a wide scale.
However, Rigetti isn't selling these devices like hotcakes. In Q1, Rigetti's revenue totaled just $1.5 million, but management isn't worried about that. Rigetti knows its sales will be lumpy initially, as most institutions interested in this technology are hoping to get grants from the U.S. government, which hasn't handed out cash as freely as it once did.
Still, if Rigetti gets a big order from a company looking to deploy quantum technology, that could excite investors and send the stock skyrocketing toward $20 per share. But that's not guaranteed.
I'm not sure if Rigetti Computing's stock will hit $20 per share by the end of the year, but if it does, it should be because of a significant order announcement. Otherwise, the stock is generally trading on hype (or the lack thereof) and will be driven by various quantum computing headlines, pushing the whole industry up or down. Long story short, betting that Rigetti will reach $20 per share again in 2025 is more of a gamble than an investment.
