EXCLUSIVE: This Stock's Up 1,300% — But CEO Says The Real Payoff's 4 Years Away

From penny stock to poster child for quantum hype, Rigetti Computing Inc (NASDAQ:RGTI) has surged over 1,300% in the past year – but its CEO Subodh Kulkarni says real commercial traction is still years away.

You'd think a ten-bagger would come with mainstream adoption. Not so fast, says Kulkarni.

Despite the eye-popping run that's pushed the quantum computing startup's valuation to roughly $1 billion, Kulkarni insists the market's just getting started — and Rigetti's big moment won't arrive for another four years.

"We expect to see commercial interest pick up when we reach quantum advantage… we are about four years away from that," he told Benzinga in an exclusive interview over email.

That might sound like a buzzkill, but it's a calculated strategy. Rigetti isn't chasing headlines — it's targeting a scalable, fault-tolerant architecture that can actually deliver results.

The company's bet on superconducting qubits (same tech as Alphabet Inc‘s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) Google and IBM (NYSE:IBM)) gives it a shot at ultra-fast gate speeds, which Kulkarni claims are 1,000x faster than rivals like ion trap systems.

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And it's not flying solo. Rigetti's QPUs are already integrated into Amazon.com Inc‘s (NASDAQ:AMZN) Braket and Microsoft Corp‘s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Azure, giving the company a seat at the table alongside Big Tech. Its systems are also available for use at government-backed quantum labs in the U.S. and U.K. — a rare sign of institutional trust in a field that's often long on theory and short on delivery.

"We're not ahead of demand — demand exists now," Kulkarni added, referencing interest from financial institutions and national labs.

Still, Rigetti remains a microcap with massive volatility. The stock may have outrun fundamentals for now, but with a roadmap toward 1,000+ qubits and error correction, Rigetti wants to be more than just a speculative flyer.

If it hits its technical milestones by 2028, this $1 billion anomaly might just become the market's next quantum blue chip.

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