D-Wave Quantum’s $32 Million Order Bonanza Sets Up a High-Stakes Earnings Showdown

D-Wave Quantum posts $32M in Q1 orders, eclipsing last year's revenue, but stock falls 4%. Analysts bullish with $36.76 target ahead of May 12 earnings.

The disconnect between D-Wave Quantum’s commercial momentum and its stock price has rarely been starker. The Canadian quantum computing company has just booked more than $32 million in new orders in the first quarter alone — a figure that eclipses its entire revenue for the last fiscal year. Yet the market remains unimpressed, with shares sliding roughly 4% on Friday to $18.54.

Two blockbuster deals are driving the surge. Florida Atlantic University signed a $20 million contract, while a Fortune 100 company committed another $10 million for cloud-based quantum services. The order intake is a testament to growing demand, but the revenue reality remains modest: D-Wave generated just $2.75 million in sales during the fourth quarter of 2025.

The company’s annual results for 2025 painted a more encouraging top-line picture. Revenue jumped 179% to $24.6 million, and GAAP gross margins improved to 82.6%. But the bottom line told a different story. The net loss came in at $355 million, largely driven by non-cash expenses tied to warrants. On an adjusted basis, the loss was $84.5 million.

D-Wave’s valuation remains a point of contention. With a market capitalization of roughly $7 billion, the stock has at times traded at price-to-sales multiples exceeding 300. That leaves it highly vulnerable to corrections, especially given the persistent losses. The company does have a comfortable liquidity buffer — it held approximately $885 million in cash and marketable securities at year-end — but insider selling has raised eyebrows. Over the past 12 months, executives have disposed of nearly $92 million worth of shares, with no significant purchases to offset the trend.

The stock briefly caught fire in early April, surging as much as 54% on the back of World Quantum Day and Nvidia’s announcement of its Ising model family, which aims to boost quantum processor performance through AI-driven models. That euphoria has since faded, and the shares have given back much of those gains.

Analysts remain broadly bullish. The average price target stands at $36.76, and all 13 analysts covering the stock rate it a buy — not a single sell recommendation. But the real test comes on May 12, when D-Wave reports its first-quarter results before the market opens. CEO Alan Baratz will face questions during the conference call about when the record bookings will translate into recognized revenue.

Expectations are low. Analysts forecast that both revenue and earnings per share will miss estimates — a pattern that held in Q4 2025, when sales fell 26% short of consensus and the per-share loss of $0.09 came in worse than the $0.06 loss predicted.

The company has also scheduled its annual shareholder meeting for June 4, 2026. The agenda includes the election of two directors, executive compensation, and the appointment of Grant Thornton as auditor for fiscal 2026. But the governance formalities are secondary to the May earnings report, which will determine whether D-Wave can finally close the gap between its order book and its stock price.

In the broader quantum landscape, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is funding 19 teams under its HARQ program to develop hybrid quantum systems. D-Wave was not selected as a contractor — its optimization technology doesn’t align with DARPA’s requirements. Still, the company’s dual strategy of pursuing both annealing and gate-model systems positions it broadly in line with the sector’s direction.