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Rigetti's Next Big Milestone Is Two Years Away, Jefferies Warns

Jefferies cut its Rigetti price target to $12 from $18 and kept a Hold rating, citing early, uneven commercial revenue and limited visibility into sales. Rigetti's next targeted scaling step, a system with more than 300 qubits, is scheduled for mid-2028; its current 108-qubit system posted 99.5% median two-qubit fidelity in the third quarter.

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What happened

Jefferies cut its Rigetti price target to $12 from $18 and kept a Hold rating, citing early, uneven commercial revenue and limited visibility into sales. Rigetti’s next targeted scaling step, a system with more than 300 qubits, is scheduled for mid-2028; its current 108-qubit system posted 99.5% median two-qubit fidelity in the third quarter.

Confirmed

Global impact / market context

The long wait for a larger system could delay customer deployments and the revenue they generate, while concentrated sales make near-term results harder to predict. Rigetti’s ability to fund its roadmap offers support, but investors still need evidence that technical targets lead to orders.

Analyst inference

The article gives no basis for inferring broader market direction or investor positioning. It does show a company-specific link: limited commercial sales and delayed scaling could constrain revenue growth, while weak results against analyst estimates may increase pressure to turn the 2027 pipeline into firm orders.

Analyst inference

What to watch

  1. Check whether Rigetti meets its near-term fidelity targets, a measure of how accurately its quantum operations work, before the planned larger-system milestone. Confirmed
  2. Watch for the 2027 pipeline to turn into orders; confirmed purchases would provide clearer evidence of demand than a sales opportunity alone. Confirmed
  3. Track whether customer deliveries arrive on schedule, since delays could push revenue further out and extend uncertainty around Rigetti’s path to commercial sales. Analyst inference

Evidence