D-Wave Quantum’s 2,000% Booking Surge Puts Commercial Credibility to the Test

D-Wave Quantum has long been a bet on the future. But the first-quarter numbers for 2026 suggest the future may be arriving faster than expected. The company booked $33.4 million in new orders during the period — a leap of nearly 2,000 percent year-over-year and 149 percent sequentially. That figure dwarfs the actual revenue line and signals a shift from laboratory promises to real-world purchasing. The pipeline of potential deals more than doubled in value, and the average deal size did the same.

The headline booking number was driven by two large transactions: a $20 million system sale to Florida Atlantic University and a $10 million enterprise license agreement. With over 100 paying customers in the quarter — more than half of them commercial — D-Wave is no longer solely dependent on government research grants. The commercial share of revenue exceeded 73 percent, a threshold that changes how analysts view the business.

Shares have recently traded at €22.88, just above the €22.78 level seen in earlier sessions. That puts the stock about 21 percent above its 50-day moving average but still 40 percent below the 52-week high of €38.48 reached last autumn. The annualized volatility over 30 days has been running at nearly 144 percent, underscoring the extreme swings that come with a company that does not expect GAAP profits before 2030. Insider selling of roughly $30 million in recent weeks adds another layer of caution.

D-Wave is pursuing a dual-platform strategy that sets it apart from rivals such as IonQ and Rigetti. On the annealing side, usage of the Advantage2 systems jumped 314 percent over the past year. On the gate-model side, the company aims to make its first systems available later this year, following the acquisition of Quantum Circuits Inc. That deal brought error-detecting dual-rail qubits that could cut the number of physical qubits needed for logical operations by an order of magnitude. The roadmap calls for ten logical qubits as the first milestone, scaling to 100 logical qubits by 2032 — capable of more than one million operations. Intermediate steps with 17, 49 and 181 physical qubits are slated for 2026 through 2028.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying D-Wave Quantum?

Government backing has added ballast. Under the CHIPS Act, the U.S. government took a direct stake in May with a $100 million injection, positioning D-Wave as a strategic asset in the technology race with China. The broader macroeconomic environment also helped — a tentative U.S.–Iran peace agreement in mid-June calmed markets and lifted tech stocks, including D-Wave, which has gained 39 percent over the past month despite a small daily dip.

The next major test comes on June 18, when D-Wave hosts its “Qubits Europe 2026: Quantum Realized” conference in London. The location is deliberate: European governments and institutions are ramping up quantum procurement, and King Charles III cited quantum computing as a technology that will shape future prosperity during his address to the U.S. Congress. For D-Wave, the conference is an opportunity to validate that the bookings pipeline will convert to recognized revenue and that customer interest is sustainable.

The analyst consensus target of €31.38 implies about 37 percent upside from current levels, and Mizuho has called D-Wave a serious dual-platform candidate. But the path to that valuation is narrow. The company must hit its qubit milestones — 17 and 49 physical qubits — before 2027 without delays. Every missed step could trigger a sharp correction in a stock already priced for perfection. The commercial traction in bookings may be a powerful narrative, but the real proof will come when those orders turn into cash flow, and when the gate-model systems actually ship. D-Wave is no longer just a research project; it is a business under the microscope.