2026 has not been the best year for shares in quantum computing darling D-Wave Quantum’s (QBTS).
The company kept posting engineering wins and a fast-growing order book, yet the stock kept sliding, with a year-to-date decline of 14.9% at the time of writing.
That disconnect is what Wall Street started to reconsider this week.
Shares jumped sharply on Monday after a closely followed analyst left D-Wave’s first investor day with a more confident read on the business.
Why Mizuho raised its D-Wave stock price target to $35
Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh lifted his D-Wave target to $35 from $29 and kept an Outperform rating, his way of saying he expects the stock to beat the broader market, Investing.com reported.
The note landed Monday, and QBTS rallied about 13% to close near $26.71. With shares around $23 when the call went out, Rakesh’s $35 target points to roughly 50% upside.
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The vote of confidence carries weight because of who made it. Rakesh ranks fourth out of more than 12,300 analysts tracked by TipRanks, with a 73% success rate.
He pointed to D-Wave’s lead in annealing and its road map toward fault-tolerant, gate-based machines.
Cheng Xin / Getty Images
What D-Wave Quantum actually does
D-Wave is the only company selling two kinds of quantum computers.
Its older annealing systems are tuned for optimization problems, like finding the cheapest delivery route across thousands of stops.
Its newer gate-model systems, added through the Quantum Circuits acquisition, reported by Business Wire, aim at the broad, general-purpose market that rivals chase.
At its first investor day, management stretched its road map to 2032 and stuck to a goal of 10 “logical” qubits by 2030 and 100 by 2032.
Logical qubits bundle many error-prone physical qubits into one stable, reliable unit, which is what real-world workloads will need.
The revenue drop that looks worse than it sounds
The headline number from D-Wave’s first quarter did not look good. Revenue fell 81% from a year earlier to $2.9 million, the company said in its first-quarter results.
Here’s what happened:
The prior-year quarter booked a one-time $12.6 million sale of a full annealing system, a sale that’s hard to repeat every three months, and did not repeat this quarter.
Related: IBM CEO sends strong message on quantum computing
Hence, the drop in revenue reflects the missing sale, but is not an indication of a shrinking business.
The forward-looking numbers did better.
Bookings jumped almost 2,000% to a record $33.4 million, backlog climbed 563%, and D-Wave ended the period with $588 million in cash, according to its earnings release.
How QBTS stock stacks up against the quantum pack
D-Wave moves with a group of other quantum stocks, so it helps to see where QBTS sits.
QBTS versus its peers in 2026:
- D-Wave entered this week down about 11% year to date and roughly 50% below its 52-week high of $46.75.
- IonQ has been the standout, the only major pure-play holding a positive 2026 return, 24/7 Wall St. noted.
- Rigetti has tracked D-Wave closely as a fellow laggard, while newly public Quantinuum has raised the bar on valuation, The Motley Fool reported.
The takeaway for readers is that a target hike on one name often lifts the others, which cuts both ways when sentiment turns.
What still has to go right for D-Wave to reach $35
Mizuho’s 50% target is a forecast, not a promise, and several things have to line up first before that target becomes a reality.
What bulls need to see next:
- Bookings turning into recognized revenue, the gap D-Wave still has to close.
- Delivery of its planned 17-qubit system this year, an early proof point flagged by The Motley Fool.
- Steady progress toward the 2030 and 2032 qubit goals.
- A clean read at the next earnings report, due August 6, 2026.
The risks are also real.
- Valuation: worth more than $9 billion against just $2.9 million in quarterly revenue, so the price already assumes years of growth it hasn’t delivered.
- Bigger competitors: IBM and the newly public Quantinuum are better-funded and chasing the same customers.
- Wild price swings: routine 10% to 15% single-day moves on no company news.
- Policy dependence: the $100 million federal equity stake, reported by CNBC, props up the balance sheet but ties the stock to government decisions D-Wave doesn’t control.
The bottom line for QBTS investors
The bull case rests on a record order book, a deep cash pile, and a top-ranked analyst who believes the market is underpricing D-Wave’s roadmap.
Wall Street’s average rating is still a “Strong Buy,” according to StockAnalysis.
The bear case is that the company earns very little today and trades on hopes for the 2030s.
Mizuho’s call does not give assurances, but it does raise the stakes into the next earnings report.
The practical move is to watch whether bookings start converting into sales.
Related: Mizuho just rerated these 3 AI winners
