D-Wave Quantum: A Backlog Boom That Wall Street Can't Seem to Price In

D-Wave CFO steps down as bookings surge 12x but Q2 revenue misses; stock drops 32% YTD.

The numbers tell two stories about D-Wave Quantum, and they are growing increasingly difficult to reconcile. On one side sits a bookings pipeline that has expanded more than twelvefold in a single year, a second commercial deployment with a major Japanese telecom, and fresh government backing for its next-generation hardware. On the other sits a share price that has shed nearly a third of its value over the past twelve months and a finance chief heading for the exit.

That tension came into sharp focus this week when the company announced CFO John Markovich would step down on September 2. The stock initially dropped around eight percent before clawing back 2.3 percent on Thursday to close at EUR 15.37 — a technical bounce off oversold conditions rather than a genuine vote of confidence.

An Insider Takes the Reins

Markovich, who guided D-Wave through its 2022 public listing and helped orchestrate more than $900 million in capital raises, is departing under amicable terms. The company was explicit that his exit bears no connection to disagreements over business strategy or accounting matters.

Stepping in on an interim basis is Greg Golkov, the firm's senior vice president of finance, who brings over 25 years of experience across technology companies and has overseen transitions at publicly traded firms. His familiarity with D-Wave's books — spanning accounting, SEC reporting, planning, treasury, and tax — suggests continuity rather than disruption, even if the market's initial reaction said otherwise.

The timing, however, is awkward. D-Wave reported second-quarter revenue of $3.08 million, coming in below the consensus estimate of $4.03 million. On a half-year basis, revenue fell 67 percent year over year, and the per-share loss of $0.10 missed expectations of a $0.08 loss. Zacks Research responded by downgrading the stock from "Strong Buy" to "Hold" on August 21, triggering a 1.1 percent decline that day.

The Bookings Story Keeps Building

Yet the operational picture tells a markedly different story. First-half bookings surged to $35.50 million, up from just $2.90 million in the prior-year period. Remaining performance obligations — the backlog of not-yet-realized work — climbed to $40.70 million, a 668 percent increase year over year.

The commercial mix is also shifting. Paid customers now account for 62 percent of quarterly revenue, up from 45 percent a year earlier, signaling a gradual transition from research-funded projects to real-world deployments.

NTT DOCOMO, the Japanese mobile operator, has now put a second D-Wave-powered application into production. The system cuts location-registration signaling during tracking-area zone transitions by 65.3 percent at daily peak, reduces paging signal volume by 7.0 percent, and optimizes a network problem spanning 333 base stations, three tracking-area lists, and nine tracking zones in roughly five minutes.

Governance and Government Support

D-Wave has also moved to strengthen its boardroom oversight. Kevan P. Krysler, currently CFO of Carbon Robotics and previously in senior finance roles at Everpure, VMware, and KPMG, has joined the board and its audit committee — a timely addition given the finance leadership transition.

The Canadian National Research Council has meanwhile awarded D-Wave up to CAD 300,000 to develop software for its Advantage2 quantum computers at the company's Burnaby facility.

A Market Still Demanding Proof

The share price continues to reflect the sector's broader skepticism. At EUR 15.37, the stock trades roughly 12 percent below its 50-day moving average of EUR 17.55, and it remains down 32 percent on the year. The current price sits about 62 percent below the 52-week high of EUR 40.41 reached in October 2025, though it has recovered 38 percent from its March 30 low of EUR 11.12.

The technical picture has stabilized somewhat — the relative strength index at 42.8 suggests the stock has moved back into neutral territory after losing 12 percent in seven days. But the pattern is telling: D-Wave shareholders appear to react more reflexively to personnel news than to hard operational data.

Whether Golkov's interim stewardship calms nerves or the leadership change adds another layer of uncertainty is a question that will only be answered in the weeks ahead. For now, the fundamental wager remains unchanged: can record bookings and production deployments eventually translate into dependable revenue streams before investor patience — and capital — run dry?