A large quantum computer system sale that closed in early 2025 made for a difficult comparison in the latest period, pushing first-quarter revenue down 81% to $2.9 million, D-Wave Quantum reported. D-Wave stock rose almost 5% in early trading.
Analysts had expected revenue of $4.2 million and a loss of 8 cents per share, according to MSN. D-Wave posted a net loss of $18.4 million, or 5 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $5.4 million, or 2 cents per share, in the first quarter of 2025, the company said.
At $33.4 million, quarterly bookings represented a dramatic jump from the $1.6 million recorded in the year-ago period; the metric captures customer orders that are expected to convert into recognized revenue over time. Two deals drove the bulk of that total: Florida Atlantic University agreed to buy an annealing quantum computer for $20 million, while an unnamed Fortune 100 company signed a two-year quantum computing as a service contract worth $10 million.
Remaining performance obligations, which reflect contracted revenue not yet recognized, totaled $42.4 million as of March 31, up from $6.4 million a year earlier, the company said. About 54% of that balance is expected to be recognized as revenue within the next 12 months.
"Our record-setting $10 million quantum computing as a service agreement with a Fortune 100 company reinforced growing demand for our annealing systems," CEO Alan Baratz said in a statement.
The quarter also marked the close of D-Wave's $550 million purchase of Quantum Circuits, according to MSN, a company whose work centers on superconducting gate-model systems designed to operate with error correction. The company said the deal is expected to accelerate its development of large-scale, error-corrected gate-model systems, with a roadmap targeting about 175 physical qubits by the end of 2028 and 1,000 physical qubits with 10 logical qubits by the end of 2030.
Operating expenses rose to $56.5 million in the quarter, up 125% from $25.2 million a year earlier. The company attributed the increase in part to $9.1 million in non-recurring costs tied to the Quantum Circuits acquisition, along with higher personnel, research and development, and marketing costs.
During the first quarter, D-Wave recognized revenue from more than 100 individual customers, with more than 50% being commercial enterprises, the company said. D-Wave plans to hold its first investor day on June 1 at the New York Stock Exchange.