D-Wave Quantum's Order Book Is Booming, but the Cash Register Is Still Quiet

D-Wave shares gained on a CGI partnership embedding its quantum systems, but Q2 revenue of USD 3.1 million stayed flat and bookings remain lumpy.

D-Wave Quantum shares closed Wednesday's session at EUR 15.35, up 3.9%, and were trading 3.3% higher at EUR 15.27 on Thursday. Two forces are pulling the stock in opposite directions: a commercial pipeline that is filling up fast, and a revenue line that has barely budged.

The immediate catalyst is a partnership with IT services provider CGI, announced Wednesday, which will embed D-Wave's Advantage2 quantum system and hybrid solvers into solutions sold directly to enterprise clients. The two companies have already worked together for more than a year, and the tie-up targets specific industrial use cases — rail scheduling and network operations, complex supply chains, retail, and the energy sector. D-Wave's own list of planned deployments includes production planning, grid optimization, and maintenance scheduling for industrial equipment.

A sector tailwind, and a stubborn revenue base

The stock also caught a lift from broader momentum in quantum computing, where recent breakthroughs in error correction have lifted the whole group. But the operating picture underneath the share price is harder to dress up.

Revenue in the second quarter of 2026 came in at just USD 3.1 million, essentially flat year over year. Commercial customers accounted for 62.4% of that total, and close to half came from Forbes Global 2000 corporations — a sign of quality, if not of scale. For a company of D-Wave's ambitions, the absolute number remains small.

Bookings tell a different story. Second-quarter bookings rose 59% to USD 2.1 million, and for the entire first half of 2026 they surged 1,120% to USD 35.5 million. One single system sale worth USD 20 million did much of the heavy lifting. That concentration cuts both ways: it proves customers are willing to write large checks, but it also means D-Wave has yet to demonstrate that it can convert bookings into a steady, recurring revenue stream. If the pipeline thins out after the big-ticket projects are delivered, the company could find itself back in a dry spell.

The question analysts keep circling is whether partners like CGI can help D-Wave build predictable enterprise income — or whether the business stays hostage to a handful of irregular, lumpy contracts. CGI brings something D-Wave lacks: established relationships with large corporations and public agencies, the kind of distribution muscle needed to scale hardware and software into real deployments. Whether plugging Advantage2 into existing customer architectures actually produces high-margin software licenses and compute-time billing is the real test of the strategy.

Government money and a boardroom addition

D-Wave is not relying on commercial channels alone. Roughly three weeks ago, the company disclosed an agreement worth up to USD 100 million under the CHIPS and Science Act. On Monday, it appointed Bernard Gavgani to its board and to its cybersecurity committee. Gavgani advises the management of BNP Paribas Group on technology matters — a network that could open doors in a sector that has long been a heavy IT spender.

There is also a leadership gap to manage. Gregory Golkov has been running the finance function as interim CFO since September 2, while the company searches for a permanent successor. That administrative churn arrives at an awkward moment, when capital allocation needs to be tight and the balance sheet is under scrutiny.

What the bulls and bears are watching

The optimistic case runs like this: if large logistics and transport customers can show measurable efficiency gains from hybrid quantum solvers, other service providers will follow CGI's lead. D-Wave's bet on annealing and hybrid architectures lets it tackle optimization problems on today's hardware, while universal quantum computers from many rivals remain years away from maturity. A working sales partnership that stabilizes cash inflow would reduce D-Wave's dependence on external financing and could rebuild institutional confidence in a path to profitability.

The bear case is just as concrete. Until the CGI collaboration produces revenue that shows up in the accounts, operating costs will keep eating into liquidity. The business remains exposed to project delays, since industrial customers typically run long pilot phases before adopting an entirely new computing architecture. And if enterprise contracts keep slipping, D-Wave may have to raise capital again — a scenario that would dilute existing shareholders and put fresh pressure on the stock.

Chart levels and the next catalysts

The market's skepticism is visible in the valuation. The shares sit 62% below their 52-week high, and are down 32% since the start of the year. The 52-week low of EUR 11.12 is the line in the sand: hold above it, and the case for stabilization survives; break below, and the market may start pricing in permanent dilution from additional funding needs.

The near-term triggers are the permanent CFO appointment and the next quarterly report. Investors will want to see whether management can point to quantifiable customer projects emerging from the CGI partnership — and whether it can meaningfully slow the cash burn.