D-Wave Stock Has 2 New Reasons for Investors to Pay Attention

Key Points

• D-Wave Quantum shares have fallen nearly a third in a month despite multiple positive operational updates, as investors await proof of revenue growth and cost control.
• D-Wave expanded its multi-year partnership with SkyWater Technology, which could reduce manufacturing lot delays by up to 30% and help lower the company's widening costs.
• D-Wave delivered Italy's first annealing quantum computing system, demonstrating continued demand for its technology, though such one-off sales may not create sustainable recurring revenue.

Just weeks before the next round of earnings from many of the leading pure-play companies, the quantum computing industry seems to be focused on error correction. Quantinuum Inc. NASDAQ: QNT recently announced that it broke the global error-correction record by 10x, reducing logical errors tenfold compared with its previous record, while Alphabet Inc. NASDAQ: GOOGL has demonstrated that its "magic state" technology can reduce errors by 40x on its Willow processor.

Still, with these technological advances dominating headlines, it can be easy to overlook more material achievements across the industry.

That is exactly what has happened with D-Wave Quantum Inc. NASDAQ: QBTS, whose shares have fallen by nearly a third in the last month even as it has announced multiple promising operational updates.

The company has leaned into its R&D achievements in recent months—including a beta program for its gate-model simulator earlier in the fall—but what investors have really been seeking is proof that the company can grow its revenue and keep costs down.

Two recent updates—an expanding partnership with quantum foundry SkyWater Technology and the delivery of Italy's first-ever annealing quantum computing system—may help to give investors what they are looking for.

SkyWater Partnership Could Help Efficiency, Reduce Costs

D-Wave has a long-standing partnership with SkyWater, the first domestic quantum foundry and now an IonQ subsidiary, but expanded its collaboration as of mid-October 2026 via a new multi-year agreement. Because the foundry has already supported D-Wave's development of its Advantage2 processors in recent years, as well as numerous other projects over the last decade, it has close knowledge of D-Wave's products and manufacturing needs.

This could be key to helping the quantum firm keep its costs down, and a newly efficient manufacturing process may be key. D-Wave claims that the optimized maintenance schedule implemented by SkyWater could reduce lot delays by up to 30%, with benefits for factory throughput.

D-Wave's costs are considerable: its adjusted EBITDA loss widened by 85% year over year (YOY) last quarter. A substantial portion of those costs is tied up in production, and if SkyWater can help make manufacturing more efficient—and, in turn, less expensive—it could go a long way toward improving D-Wave's bottom line. How long it may take for this impact to show up on D-Wave's earnings reports, however, remains to be seen.

A New Annealing Quantum System for Italy Reminds Investors of Demand

D-Wave's recent gate-model quantum efforts, including its beta simulator, might suggest to investors that it is leaning heavily into this more traditional aspect of quantum technology while potentially losing focus on its other priority: annealing tech. With the delivery of a 4,400+-qubit Advantage2 system to Lombardy, Italy, however, the company reminds investors that it remains a leading annealing provider and that this technology still has real revenue potential.

Annealing may be better suited than other quantum technologies to optimization problems, and this latest delivery demonstrates continued interest among large institutional and organizational clients in this technology. By achieving critical physical infrastructure on the ground in Italy, D-Wave can further solidify its foothold in Europe.

It's important to keep in mind what the Italian quantum installation does not mean, however: a diversified revenue stream or one that is likely to generate recurring revenue at the rate that many investors are hoping for. D-Wave’s reliance on one-off sales of major systems like this has made its revenue lumpy in the past, increasing the risk of disappointing earnings reports and making it harder to convince investors that it deserves higher analyst ratings.

In this way, the Italy deployment is perhaps not the game-changer that D-Wave needs in order to keep pace with some of its rivals. Still, fulfilling a major agreement is notable nonetheless, even if it may not be enough to establish a more consistent, long-term revenue stream.

Meanwhile, D-Wave shares are now down around 55% year to date (YTD). While the broader quantum computing sector has faced a sell-off in 2026, QBTS stock has experienced one of the steepest declines. Analyst price targets suggest the share price could triple, but investors may be waiting for a stronger catalyst than either of the two announcements above before buying again. Investors particularly bullish on D-Wave, however, may find that the current scenario—with a depressed share price and some recent operational successes just a few weeks out from the next expected earnings report—provides an attractive time to buy the dip. Even so, neither announcement necessarily points to an immediate rebound in the share price.