Rigetti reports Q1 2026 revenue of $4.4M (+199% YoY), announces Cepheus-1-108Q general availability with 99.8% median two-qubit gate fidelity, $569M cash
On 2026-05-11 after the market close, Rigetti Computing filed an 8-K (accession 0001104659-26-058635) with Items 2.02 (Results of Operations) and 9.01 (Financial Statements and Exhibits) and issued a press release reporting first quarter 2026 financial results. Revenue was $4.4M (consensus $4.13M; beat by $0.27M), up from $1.472M in Q1 2025 — a 199% year-over-year increase. Non-GAAP net loss was $14.7M, or non-GAAP diluted EPS of $(0.04), in line with consensus. Operating loss was $26.0M. Cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments at 2026-03-31 stood at $569.0M, the largest balance sheet of any listed pure-play superconducting quantum hardware company. Operating cash flow was $(16.2M). On the technical side, Rigetti announced general availability of its Cepheus-1-108Q system — a 108-qubit superconducting processor built from twelve interconnected 9-qubit chiplets — with median two-qubit gate fidelity of 99.8% at 40 nanosecond gate speeds, and two-qubit gate fidelities as high as 99.9% on prototype systems. The earnings release also confirmed completion of a 9-qubit Novera QPU sale to the University of Saskatchewan and reiterated the previously-announced up-to-$100M UK quantum expansion commitment (event 2026-03-25-rigetti-uk-100m-investment). The system is accessible via Amazon Braket, Microsoft Azure Quantum, and qBraid. No forward revenue guidance was provided.
Score 6 — anchor §8.2 row 6: 'Quarterly revenue beat or miss by a meaningful margin for a tracked public name.' Rigetti's revenue tripling year-over-year (199% YoY) constitutes a meaningful margin beat at a tracked pure-play public name and meets the band-6 threshold. Held below 7 because non-GAAP EPS was in-line (not a meaningful EPS beat), no forward guidance was provided, and the share-price reaction was negative ('Rigetti Computing Revenue Triples. Why the Quantum Stock Is Falling.' — Barron's), suggesting expectations were met rather than exceeded. The Cepheus-1-108Q general availability with 99.8% median 2Q fidelity is a meaningful technical milestone — first 100+ physical-qubit superconducting Rigetti system in GA with named third-party-checkable fidelity numbers — but does not on its own cross into the score-7 'Major partnership' or 'Material capital event' anchor rows. Combined revenue + technical + balance-sheet print is investor-material; per CLAUDE.md close-call-rounds-down, 6 is the defensible band. The $569M cash position, the strongest among listed superconducting pure-plays, materially extends Rigetti's operating runway. Source confidence high (SEC 8-K accession 0001104659-26-058635, Rigetti press release, Seeking Alpha summary, Barron's); interpretation confidence high.
Resets the listed-quantum revenue/cash-runway comparable table just three days after IonQ's Q1 2026 print ($64.7M revenue, +755% YoY, 2026-05-06 event) and one day after Quantum Computing Inc's print (separately logged today): IonQ remains far ahead on absolute revenue scale; Rigetti is second-largest on the listed superconducting pure-play cohort at a $4.4M Q1 base versus Quantinuum's pre-IPO FY2025 baseline of $30.9M (audited per the 2026-05-08 public S-1). Rigetti's $569M cash position is the strongest balance sheet of any listed-superconducting pure-play and exceeds Quantinuum's pre-IPO cash ($677M at 2026-03-31 per S-1) only modestly when net of the much smaller annualized burn — an asymmetric runway profile relative to scale. Watch for: (a) Q2 2026 print whether the on-prem system shipments cadence (108-qubit Cepheus-1 in GA, plus 9-qubit Novera units) translates into a second sequential beat; (b) any disclosed customer concentration or named pilots associated with the 108-qubit GA milestone; (c) UK 1,000-qubit roadmap progress per the open thread (2026-03-25 anchor event); (d) any update on the 99.9% prototype-system 2Q fidelity reaching production maturity — the 99.9% threshold is meaningful for the surface-code error-correction crossover argument and is one of the binding constraints on whether Rigetti can credibly target a logical-qubit demonstration on Cepheus-class hardware in 2026-2027. The 9-qubit Novera sale to the University of Saskatchewan adds a new on-prem academic customer to the public account list (previously: U Wisconsin Madison, Fermilab via DOE Q-NEXT) but does not by itself reset commercial momentum.