Analytics24
19 October

Thesis Maps · Opened 22 Aug

IonQ printed 80.05 million of revenue, 485 million of remaining performance obligations, and a 280 to 290 million guide

Rigetti printed 5.14 million dollars. D-Wave printed 3.08 million. A qubit roadmap does not classify those invoices.

Gold plates and coaxial lines on a dilution refrigerator beside server racks.
Gold plates sit on the refrigerator. Coaxial lines run to the racks.

Thesis map

A qubit count is not a purchase order. IonQ booked 80.05 million of Q2 revenue and 485 million of remaining performance obligations on the 10-Q filed 10 August.

IonQ Q2 2026 revenue was 80.05 million dollars on the 10-Q filed 10 August, with 485 million of remaining performance obligations and a 280 to 290 million dollar guide. Five days earlier the investor-relations page said approximately 60 percent of the quarter was commercial. Rigetti printed 5.14 million dollars. D-Wave printed 3.08 million. A qubit roadmap does not classify that invoice.

The chain

  1. 01

    Qubit count

    A qubit number is not revenue, not remaining performance obligations, and not a guide. Roadmaps publish. Invoices classify.

  2. 02

    Purchase order

    IonQ booked 80.05 million of Q2 revenue. Approximately 60 percent of the quarter was commercial on the 5 August investor-relations page, defined as non-US-government customers and leading universities.

  3. 03

    RPO

    Remaining performance obligations 485 million. Guide 280 to 290 million. Those two objects grade the book. A qubit count does not.

  4. 04

    Commercial mix

    The published rule counts universities as academic, not as a paying enterprise workload. Named does not mean the mix is clean.

Long side

Owns the scarce object. Named filing, named plant, named queue.

IONQ

10-Q filed 10 August

IonQ

80.05 million · RPO 485 million

The owned scan of 5 September printed IONQ at 39.52, up 0.8 percent on five days. The catalyst line still said Quantum. The 10-Q is the object.

IBM

IBM chandelier

IBM sits on the theme page as the incumbent chandelier photograph, not as a Q2 mix comparator. The photograph is not IonQ remaining performance obligations.

RGTI

Rigetti

5.14 million

Rigetti printed 5.14 million dollars. That is an invoice scale, not a qubit roadmap. It is not 80.05 million.

QBTS

D-Wave

3.08 million

D-Wave printed 3.08 million. SkyWater closed on 31 July for 1.8 billion dollars. Neither number is a qubit count.

Short side

Constrained by the chain, or a substitute that is not the product.

short

Roadmap qubits

A roadmap qubit is not an invoice. Publishing a count does not roll into remaining performance obligations.

short

Grant revenue

A grant is not computation revenue. The invalidation on this theme excludes grants from the 100 million trailing-twelve-month test.

short

Scan print 39.52

39.52 on 5 September

A 5 September print of 39.52 is a name on a scan. Seven Form 4 buys do not classify the 10-Q.

How they interconnect

  • Qubit countis notPurchase order

    A qubit count is not a purchase order. IonQ 80.05 million on the 10-Q filed 10 August is the order that printed.

  • Purchase orderrolls intoRPO

    A purchase order rolls into remaining performance obligations. 485 million is that book.

  • Purchase orderstill needsCommercial mix

    Commercial mix still has to survive the published rule. Universities are academic, not enterprise, on that page.

  • IonQprintsPurchase order

    IonQ prints the invoice. The guide is 280 to 290 million. The scan is 39.52.

  • IBM chandelierphotographsQubit count

    IBM photographs the chandelier. That incumbent image is not IonQ remaining performance obligations.

  • Rigettiprints a smallerPurchase order

    Rigetti 5.14 million is an invoice. It is not 80.05 million. Scale is the grade.

  • D-Waveprints a smallerPurchase order

    D-Wave 3.08 million is an invoice. SkyWater at 1.8 billion on 31 July is a foundry close, not a qubit.

  • Roadmap qubitspublishesQubit count

    Roadmap qubits publish. They do not invoice. A count is not remaining performance obligations.

  • IonQis notGrant revenue

    IonQ commercial mix is the test. Grant revenue does not satisfy the 100 million computation clock.

  • IonQis notScan print 39.52

    The 10-Q is not the 5 September scan. 39.52 does not unprint 80.05 million or 485 million of remaining performance obligations.

If you believe the thesis

The invoice and remaining performance obligations grade the name. A qubit count does not. Universities count as academic under the published rule, not as a paying enterprise workload. IBM sits on the theme page as the incumbent chandelier photograph, not as a Q2 mix comparator.

If the thesis is incorrect

A listed pure-play reports more than 100 million of trailing-twelve-month computation revenue, excluding grants, before 2028. Then the qubit count was a product. A 5 September print of 39.52 is a name on a scan. Seven Form 4 buys do not classify the invoice either.

updated 22 Aug 2026

It is a dilution refrigerator: stacked plates, a forest of coaxial lines, a temperature a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. That is the machine IonQ, IBM, Rigetti, and D-Wave are selling from. The photograph on this page is the shop floor.

IonQ printed $80.1 million in the second quarter, up 287 percent. The company guided $280 to $290 million for the year and showed $485 million of remaining performance obligations. Equity value around $16.5 billion. Shares outstanding 368 million. Inder Singh, the chief financial officer, said about 60 percent of the quarter was commercial, and he put leading universities inside that word. Allied ministries and national labs sit there too. That is how a platform is born. DARPA paid for the first GPS birds. Universities ran the first internet nodes. The first quantum letters look the same.

You do not buy a foundry to publish a preprint

SkyWater is a $1.8 billion close. About $120 million of intercompany vanishes on consolidation. Singh also said 50 percent of revenue was international and 25 percent was multi-product. Government will grow some quarters. That is a customer with a budget, not a hole in the story.

Three names, one session

The same week IonQ, Rigetti, and D-Wave moved with the Nasdaq: Friday +8.0 percent, +11.5 percent, +8.5 percent, after a Friday-to-Friday of -3.0, -4.8, and -3.7. D-Wave printed about $3.08 million in the quarter. Rigetti about $5.14 million. Those two are earlier. IonQ is the one with a letter large enough to read. One filing is not the sector. It is the first company in the sector that already looks like a business.

What the multiple is paying for

Fifty-eight times trailing sales is a software price on hardware that still has a science department. That is the exciting part. The market is paying now for compute that does not exist on a classical rack: chemistry that will not fit in a simulation, optimisation that eats a data centre, sensing and timing that a ministry will not buy from a foreign fab. Honeywell already lives in that adjacent hardware. Microsoft and IBM are the incumbents who have to name a paying external customer or the new names keep the option.

The honest risk is dilution. Shares outstanding up 46 percent year on year. An acquisition that issues more than 10 percent of the company to buy time is capital filling in for a late customer. Write that when it happens. Do not write it as if the chandelier were a school experiment.

Friday's 8 percent was the Nasdaq and the names. Write the foundry, the $80.1 million, and the $485 million book until a bigger letter arrives.

Also

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Analytics24 holds a material long position in a listed quantum company. This theme is written as the bear case against that position. If the theme is right, the position loses money. The hypotheses below were committed to before the next print and cannot be revised after it.