Rigetti Computing (RGTI +1.44%) stock has come back to Earth -- somewhat. After riding a wave of enthusiasm to $58, shares now sit around $16.
If all goes well for Rigetti
The bull case requires a lot to go right: Rigetti must make fundamental technological breakthroughs that allow it to land sustained commercial contracts that will lead to annual revenues orders of magnitude larger than the $7.5 million it brought in during the last 12 months.
NASDAQ: RGTI
Key Data Points
Rigetti has real strengths -- its technology is advanced, it manufactures its own machines, and it has about $450 million in cash and equivalents, giving it years of runway. If it can develop commercially viable quantum computing in the next handful of years, then Rigetti will be in good shape.
If things don't go according to plan for Rigetti
But quantum computing has been a few years away for nearly 20 years -- at least according to executives and PR teams within the industry. If quantum computing is much further away -- and there is plenty of reason to believe this is possible -- Rigetti has to think about its own survival while big tech players like Alphabet, IBM, and Microsoft can wait decades for their investments to pay off.
Image source: Getty Images.
The bottom line
By 2030, I think we'll be in a similar situation to today, with quantum computing still just a few years off. If that's the case, I wouldn't want to have bought Rigetti stock near today's prices.
