Wall Street Analysts Grow Increasingly Bullish on D-Wave Quantum’s Prospects

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A fresh wave of optimism is sweeping over D-Wave Quantum Inc. from Wall Street, as another prominent firm initiates coverage with a strongly positive outlook. Jefferies has commenced research coverage on the quantum computing company, assigning a buy rating and setting a price target of $45 per share. This projection implies an approximate 90% upside from current trading levels, building upon a remarkable rally that has already seen the stock surge more than 180% since the start of the year.

The move by Jefferies is part of a broader trend of growing analyst confidence. This follows a recent update from Mizuho on December 11, where analyst Vijay Rakesh rated the shares as "Outperform" with a $46 price target—currently the highest known target among major research firms. The Jefferies initiation reinforces a pattern of increasingly favorable Wall Street assessments.

The Jefferies Investment Thesis

Jefferies analyst Kevin Garrigan based the optimistic stance on structural tailwinds within the quantum computing sector and D-Wave's strategic positioning. Key pillars of the analysis include:

• A Dual-Path Technology Roadmap: The company is pursuing a combined strategy featuring annealing systems for optimization problems and gate-based systems for simulation, chemistry, and linear algebra applications. Both architectures leverage a shared superconducting stack. The long-term ambition is to achieve roughly 100,000 annealing qubits through multi-chip modules.

• Demonstrable Commercial Adoption: According to Jefferies, over 100 organizations are now using D-Wave's systems in production environments. This client base includes more than two dozen companies listed on the Forbes Global 2000, with use cases spanning manufacturing, logistics, public safety, telecommunications, and pharmaceuticals.

• A Strengthened Financial Foundation: Entering 2026, D-Wave holds a solid balance sheet with $836.2 million in liquid assets against approximately $32 million in debt. Recent warrant exercises have also served to streamline the company's equity structure.

Garrigan also highlighted the commercial availability of the Advantage2 platform via the Leap cloud service. He believes this combination of new hardware and an accessible delivery model will catalyze an increase in customer projects, larger experimental budgets, and more pilot applications.

Looking Ahead: Execution is Key

The latest analyst report underscores three core arguments for D-Wave: a clearly articulated technology roadmap, visible commercial traction with major enterprise clients, and a robust liquidity position. Coupled with the stock's powerful year-to-date performance and a chorus of positive analyst notes, the central question now shifts to the company's ability to operationally deliver on these heightened expectations in the coming quarters.

Upcoming financial results for the 2026 business year, alongside progress updates on the Advantage2 platform and gate-based systems, are expected to provide concrete milestones for evaluating the company's trajectory.