D-Wave Quantum reports Q1 2026 record bookings of $33.4M (+1,994% YoY), discloses Quantum Circuits dual-rail acquisition financial impact, and announces dual-rail roadmap to 100 logical qubits by end-2032
On 2026-05-12 pre-market, D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE: QBTS) filed an 8-K (accession 0001907982-26-000057) with Items 2.02 (Results of Operations) and 9.01 (Financial Statements and Exhibits), and a concurrent 10-Q (accession 0001907982-26-000059), reporting first quarter 2026 results. Headline metrics: Revenue $2.858M (Q1 2025 $15.0M, which included a one-time $12.6M annealing system sale). Bookings (operating metric, customer orders expected to generate future net revenues) $33.4M — a record, +1,994% YoY from Q1 2025 $1.6M and +149% QoQ from Q4 2025 $13.4M. Remaining Performance Obligations (RPO) $42.4M, +563% YoY and +216% QoQ from $13.4M, with ~54% expected recognition within 12 months. Net loss $18.357M, basic and diluted EPS $(0.05) vs Street consensus $(0.0631), narrow beat. GAAP gross margin 63.6% (Q1 2025 92.5%, reflecting the absence of the one-time prior-year system sale at higher margin). Non-GAAP adjusted operating expenses $34.8M (+73% YoY). Adjusted EBITDA loss $32.8M (Q1 2025 $6.1M). Cash, cash equivalents and marketable investment securities at 2026-03-31 totaled $588.4M, +93% YoY from $304.3M. Q1 2026 bookings included a $20M Advantage2 system purchase by Florida Atlantic University (FAU, Florida's first system sale, training program launched, installation by end-2026) and a $10M two-year enterprise Quantum Computing as a Service (QCaaS) agreement with an unnamed Fortune 100 company. Strategic-disclosure content: the earnings release confirmed the January 2026 acquisition of Quantum Circuits, Inc. (gate-model superconducting dual-rail QPU developer); the balance sheet reflects $342.6M of goodwill (vs $0 at year-end) and $215.3M of intangible assets created from the acquisition, plus a $28.5M one-time income tax benefit. D-Wave is now positioned as the only quantum company pursuing both annealing and gate-model architectures. Concurrent with the print, D-Wave announced a multi-year dual-rail superconducting hardware roadmap with concrete milestones: by end of 2028, a dual-rail system with approximately 175 physical qubits plus a 1,000-physical-qubit system design; by end of 2030, a 1,000-physical-qubit dual-rail system with 10 logical qubits plus a 10,000-physical-qubit design; by end of 2032, a dual-rail system supporting 100 logical qubits, framed by management as a key milestone for reaching 'initial quantum utility.' D-Wave will host its first-ever Investor Day on 2026-06-01 at the New York Stock Exchange to detail the roadmap. Other Q1 highlights: Shionogi quantum-AI drug-discovery phase-2 collaboration delivered a 10x increase in desirable molecules; Postquant Labs quantum-classical blockchain Testnet launched with 18,500 early users and 1,600+ nodes; new Stride hybrid solver with ML surrogate-model integration; new multi-color annealing protocols enabling gate-model-style operations within the commercial Advantage2 annealing system (arXiv:2603.15534). Earnings call held 2026-05-12 08:00 ET with CEO Dr. Alan Baratz and CFO John Markovich.
Score 7 — combination of three score-band-relevant components: (a) §8.2 anchor row 6 'Quarterly revenue beat or miss by a meaningful margin' — Q1 2026 records narrow EPS beat (consensus $(0.0631), actual $(0.05)) and a Bookings figure that is the largest in D-Wave's history at +1,994% YoY against the trailing-90-day baseline; revenue down YoY but the prior-year comparable included a non-recurring $12.6M system sale, which the Bookings record reverses; (b) §8.2 anchor row 7 'An unexpected corporate action at a tracked public company' is partially advanced by the disclosed financial impact ($342.6M goodwill, $215.3M intangibles, $28.5M tax benefit) of the previously-undisclosed-to-this-system Quantum Circuits acquisition closing in January 2026 — the largest balance-sheet event in D-Wave's history; (c) the dual-rail superconducting roadmap with explicit 100-logical-qubit-by-end-2032 milestone moves D-Wave from a single-modality (annealing-only) public quantum name to a dual-modality public quantum name (annealing + gate-model dual-rail), the most material strategic re-positioning of a tracked public quantum company since the 2026-03-27 Xanadu de-SPAC trading debut. Comparable precedent: 2026-05-06 IonQ Q1 2026 print scored 7 on combined revenue beat + Cambridge 256-qubit shipment news. 2026-05-11 Rigetti Q1 2026 print scored 6 on revenue beat + Cepheus-1-108Q GA. D-Wave at 7 is supported by the strategic-pivot content (Quantum Circuits acquisition + dual-rail roadmap with logical-qubit targets) plus the record Bookings figure; held below 8 because revenue itself declined YoY and the named Fortune-100 customer remained unnamed at filing. Cross-verification: SEC 8-K accession 0001907982-26-000057, primary press release Exhibit 99.1, 10-Q (0001907982-26-000059) for balance sheet. Source confidence high; interpretation confidence medium (the dual-rail roadmap's logical-qubit-count milestones are forward-looking; the 100-logical-qubit-by-2032 claim is comparable to IonQ's 'initial quantum utility' framing but has not been independently benchmarked).
Resets the listed-quantum Q1 2026 cohort comparison: IonQ Q1 revenue $64.7M / +755% YoY (2026-05-06, score 7), Rigetti Q1 revenue $4.4M / +199% YoY (2026-05-11, score 6), QUBT Q1 revenue $3.69M / +94x YoY Luminar-driven (2026-05-11, score 6), and D-Wave Q1 revenue $2.9M / -81% YoY with Bookings $33.4M / +1,994% YoY (2026-05-12, score 7). Across the four prints, total Q1 listed-quantum pure-play revenue ≈$75.4M; cohort cash at quarter-end exceeds $2.6B (IonQ + Rigetti + D-Wave + QUBT). D-Wave's pivot to dual-modality via the Quantum Circuits acquisition is the second 2026 instance of a public quantum name acquiring a complementary modality (the first being PsiQuantum's GlobalFoundries silicon-photonic foundry engagement, structurally different). Watch for: (a) the named Fortune 100 QCaaS customer identity, which would be the largest publicly-disclosed enterprise QCaaS agreement at any tracked annealing or gate-model name; (b) Quantum Circuits dual-rail integration progress — the company will not publish dual-rail benchmark numbers until end-2028 per the roadmap, but progress milestones may surface earlier; (c) Investor Day 2026-06-01 NYSE additional roadmap detail and any disclosure of named pilot customers for the dual-rail platform; (d) cohort follow-on Form 4 cluster around the four Q1 prints (IONQ, RGTI, QBTS, QUBT) given the catalyst-adjacent insider-pattern hypothesis; (e) third-party benchmarking of the new multi-color annealing protocols announced in the Advantage2 commercial system (arXiv:2603.15534) — these enable 'some gate model operations' within annealing hardware, a previously undisclosed Advantage2 capability and a defensive/competitive response to gate-model criticism of annealing's relevance. SkyWater Q1 2026 print scheduled 2026-05-13 — pending. Cisco Q3 FY26 print scheduled 2026-05-13 AfterMarket — pending and evaluated under §7.4 rule-8 big-tech quantum-specifics filter; Cisco is on the watch list due to the 2026-03-25 Atom Computing networking partnership.