D-Wave Quantum Shares Rise on Expanded Partnership with AT&T
D-Wave Quantum (QBTS) shares rose by 7% following an expanded agreement with AT&T to deploy its quantum systems for network operations, achieving a reported 240x speedup in optimization tasks. The positive reaction extended across the quantum computing sector, lifting IonQ (IONQ), Rigetti Computing (RGTI), and Quantum Computing Inc. (QUBT) by up to 12%. Despite this rally, these pure-play names remain down between 16% and 29% year-to-date. The Defiance Quantum ETF (QTUM) also saw a modest increase of 1%, reflecting broader exposure across the compute sector rather than quantum-specific gains. The deal with AT&T marks one of the first concrete enterprise deployments in the industry, addressing real-world applications like outage detection and traffic management. Benchmark analyst initiated coverage on D-Wave at Buy with a $30 price target. Rigetti Computing also received a boost from its collaboration with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to build TangleLab, supported by an NSF grant of $5 million. The project is expected to begin construction in September 2026 and reach full operations by early 2027.
Tickers: $HPE $HPQ $IONQ $QBTS $QTUM $QUBT $RGTI $T
Topics: AT&T partnership D-Wave IonQ QTUM ETF quantum computing Quantum Computing Inc. Rigetti Computing