Rigetti gets none of Nvidia's $1 billion or the Pentagon's $350 million; its win comes with an equity stake
Washington lined up roughly $1.35 billion for science and quantum in one week: Nvidia's $1 billion pledge and the Pentagon's $350 million. The defense money goes to DARPA's final-stage six and a PsiQuantum loan; Rigetti's named win is $100 million of R&D funding that hands the Commerce Department an equity stake.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
The billion arrives as credits, not contracts
Nvidia−0.47% — Nvidia, down 0.47 percent today opened the week on October 8 at the "Science: A New Golden Age" event in Washington, announcing commitments "valued at" $1 billion over five years to advance United States science, quantum computing among the named fields 1. The company did not specify what shape the money takes 2.
The White House's accounting books Nvidia's billion inside $2.4 billion of tools and compute credits pledged to the Genesis Mission Consortium by eleven industry partners, AMD−2.05% — AMD, down 2.05 percent today at $500 million among them 3. The Pentagon added about $350 million: roughly $200 million in new DARPA Quantum Benchmarking Initiative funding and a $150 million conditional loan to PsiQuantum 4. That is roughly $1.35 billion in a week, and none of it carries Rigetti's−0.85% — Rigetti's, down 0.85 percent today name 14.
None of the week's $1.35 billion carries Rigetti's name
Data
| Announced | |
|---|---|
| Nvidia pledge | $1,000M |
| DARPA QBI | $200M |
| PsiQuantum loan | $150M |
| Rigetti award | $100M |
DARPA's final stage cut Rigetti out
The downselect did the separating. DARPA advanced Atom Computing, Diraq, IBM−0.05% — IBM, down 0.05 percent today and IonQ+1.09% — IonQ, up 1.09 percent today to QBI's final Stage C, joining Microsoft+2.33% — Microsoft, up 2.33 percent today and PsiQuantum, and IonQ says its Stage C agreement is worth up to $300 million through 2029 5. Rigetti is not on that list.
On August 6, chief executive Subodh Kulkarni told analysts the company is "optimistic that we will get into DARPA Phase B relatively soon" 6. The screener math frames the gap: IonQ books about $246 million of revenue on a $15.67 billion market cap; Rigetti books about $13 million, $7 million of it from the United States, on $4.7 billion 7.
Revenue nearly tripled in 2026; the quarterly burn held near $13 million to $16 million
- Revenue
- Operating cash flow
Data
| Revenue | Operating cash flow | |
|---|---|---|
| Q3 '23 | $3.11 | -$4.54 |
| Q4 '23 | $3.38 | -$12.42 |
| Q1 '24 | $3.05 | -$13.14 |
| Q2 '24 | $3.09 | -$13.52 |
| Q3 '24 | $2.38 | -$15.43 |
| Q4 '24 | $2.27 | -$8.54 |
| Q1 '25 | $1.47 | -$13.65 |
| Q2 '25 | $1.8 | -$16.17 |
| Q3 '25 | $1.95 | -$13.82 |
| Q4 '25 | $1.87 | -$14.9 |
| Q1 '26 | $4.4 | -$16.22 |
| Q2 '26 | $5.14 | -$15.78 |
The $100 million funds the roadmap, not the sales line
Rigetti's tangible federal win predates the week: a definitive $100 million award from the Commerce Department, signed September 8 under the CHIPS research program, funding readout electronics, cryostat capacity and chip fabrication over three years 6, with Commerce taking a minority, non-controlling equity stake 9. It is research money that arrives with dilution attached, not demand.
The next dollar with a date on it is an $8.4 million, 108-qubit system for India's C-DAC, expected to be recognized in the fourth quarter 6; the largest named United States defense item is a $5.8 million, three-year Air Force Research Laboratory contract 7.
GuruFocus counts $32.9 million of insider selling over twelve months and zero buys, and values the stock at $8.79 against the October 7 close of $14.59, inside a 52-week range of $12.53 to $58.15 10.
The dated tests: fidelity, India, Stage B
The dip still has a camp. A Seeking Alpha roundtable splits between one analyst calling RGTI a speculative play that rallies when sentiment turns and another backing selective accumulation over any sector-wide buy signal 11.
The company's own calendar now carries the verdict. It must lift Cepheus-1-108Q's median two-qubit gate fidelity from roughly 99.1 percent toward about 99.5 percent later this year, book the C-DAC order in the fourth quarter, and reach DARPA Stage B, a door the agency says stays open as earlier-stage performers progress 56. Until one of those clears, the week's billions do not touch Rigetti's income statement.
More about NVIDIA
NVDA · Fiscal Q2 2027Revenue rose 106% to $96.2B, 92.5% of it from Data Center, “driven by the ramp of our Blackwell Ultra infrastructure”. Gains on equity stakes of $7.8B lifted net income to $59.7B.
Show as a table
| Line | Value |
|---|---|
| Revenue | $96.2B |
| Gross margin | 75.0% |
| Operating margin | 66.2% |
| Net income | $59.7B |
| Hyperscale | $48.7B |
| AI clouds & enterprise | $40.3B |
| Data Center | $89.0B |
| Edge Computing | $7.2B |
| Gross profit | $72.1B |
| Cost of revenue | $24.1B |
| Other income | $7.8B |
| Operating income | $63.7B |
| Operating expenses | $8.4B |
| Tax | $11.8B |
| R&D | $7.1B |
| SG&A | $1.4B |
Deepdive
AI-generated from this story and its cited sources. Not investment advice.
