Why Rigetti Computing Popped Today
Key Points
As part of the CHIPS Act, Rigetti will receive a $100 million investment from the Dept. of Commerce.
The size of the government's stake was not disclosed.
Rigetti is still only generating minimal revenue.
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Shares of Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ: RGTI) were moving higher today after the quantum computing company secured $100 million in CHIPS Act funding, along with quantum peer D-Wave Quantum, showing the sector becoming the latest to receive interest from the federal government, which had previously taken stakes in chip stocks like Intel and GlobalFoundries.
As of 9:54 a.m. ET, Rigetti Computing stock was up 7.9% after gaining as much as 12.2% earlier in the morning.
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Rigetti gets CHIPS Act funding
In a press release this morning, Rigetti said that it had signed an agreement with the Department of Commerce for a $100 million award to accelerate R&D to scale and advance superconducting quantum computers.
The value of the government's stake is unclear, as the release just said that the Dept. of Commerce will receive a minority, non-controlling equity stake in the company. Rigetti currently has a market cap of around $5 billion, so taking the investment at face value would equal a stake of about 2% for the government.
What's next for Rigetti
Rigetti is still barely generating revenue, reporting $5.1 million in revenue in the second quarter, and quantum computing remains an emerging technology.
Still, the interest from the government is clearly a positive for Rigetti and its peers. While that funding won't make it a viable business, it should help it advance its research and bring it closer to generating meaningful revenue. Still, the stock is speculative until it can get to that point.
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Jeremy Bowman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Globalfoundries and Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
