Forget D-Wave: This Stock Is the Next Quantum Computing Winner - Yahoo Finance

Forget D-Wave: This Stock Is the Next Quantum Computing Winner Chris Neiger, The Motley Fool December 12, 2025 4 min read QBTS +7.75% GOOG +1.60% Key Points D-Wave stock has skyrocketed 433% over the past year, but it generates little revenue and is unprofitable. The quantum computing market is frothy right now, and practical usage of the technology is likely still years away. Alphabet has made significant strides in quantum computing and has the financial resources to weather the potentially lengthy timeline toward success. 10 stocks we like better than Alphabet › Quantum computing has risen to the top of many investors' must-have lists over the past few years, driving up the share prices of niche players in this space, including D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE: QBTS). D-Wave's share price has surged by over 433% in the past year alone, although it has recently pulled back as investors have become increasingly concerned about speculative investments. Still, the quantum computing market appears very frothy right now, and the timeline for widespread real-world applications of quantum computing seems lengthy. Here's why investors should avoid D-Wave right now and opt for picking up shares of tech leader Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) instead. Image source: Getty Images. Why you should forget about D-Wave right now Let's start with quantum computing's long path toward practicality. Many experts, including those from some quantum computing companies such as Alphabet, believe it will be many years, and possibly even a decade, before real-world use cases for quantum computing emerge. That's particularly troubling for quantum computing pure plays like D-Wave. The company had just $3.7 million in sales in the third quarter, while its net loss widened from $0.11 per share to $0.41 per share. With such minimal sales and widening losses amid a potentially long runway before quantum computing takes off, investors are taking a big bet on the company. What's more, D-Wave's shares currently have a very high price-to-sales ratio of 325 -- compared to the average P/S ratio of 9 for the tech sector -- making the company's stock priced for perfection. If it doesn't deliver sales and eventually earnings at a breakneck pace, investors could quickly lose interest and abandon this stock. Why Alphabet is a better quantum computing play It surprises me that we currently hear so much about a potential AI bubble, but far less so about a quantum computing bubble. After all, many AI companies have lots of revenue and earnings to back up their share price gains. That's why I think it's worth zooming out and viewing the big picture with quantum computing, focusing on companies that are already tech leaders and doing significant things in the space, such as Alphabet.

Story Continues The company released a quantum computing processor, called Willow, last year, that it says "paves the way for a useful, large-scale quantum computer" and was a breakthrough in error correction. The company also recently created what it calls a "Quantum Echoes" algorithm, which ran 13,000 times faster than the world's most powerful supercomputer. The advantage Alphabet has over D-Wave and other pure-play quantum computing players is that it had $2.87 per share in earnings, $102 billion in revenue, and $24.4 billion in free cash flow in its third quarter. In short, it's massively profitable and has the cash resources to invest in new areas of growth like quantum computing for years to come.If quantum computing takes off in the near future, Alphabet's current developments will help the company tap into it. However, if the timeline extends over many years or even a decade, Alphabet will benefit from its lead in artificial intelligence, advertising, and software in the meantime.Should you invest $1,000 in Alphabet right now?Before you buy stock in Alphabet, consider this:The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Alphabet wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $499,978!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,126,609!* Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 971% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 195% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors.See the 10 stocks »*Stock Advisor returns as of December 8, 2025Chris Neiger has no position in any of the stocks mentioned.

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