By Mackenzie Tatananni

Quantum Computing started out 25 years ago selling inkjet cartridges. Six years later, it morphed into a beverage distributor. Today, it makes a device that uses light particles to solve problems.

Wall Street has tried to make sense of it all, without much luck. QCi, a smaller public company that describes itself a "pure play" on quantum optics, is still a head-scratcher.

That doesn't mean investors can't learn to like a puzzle.

This past week, Edward Woo of Ascendiant Capital Markets and John McPeake of Rosenblatt Securities backed the beaten-down stock. Both rate it Buy. Woo raised his price target from $27 to $30; McPeake kept his at $22.

Shares were 11.9% higher at $11.12 on a broader market rally tied to the U.S.-Iran peace deal. Heading into the session, the stock had fallen 53% over the past 12 months; peers Rigetti Computing, IonQ, and D-Wave Quantum are up 73%, 51%, and 46%, respectively.

Woo sees potential for real revenue growth. He thinks Wall Street's estimate for full-year revenue of $20 million to $25 million is reasonable, based on conversations with management. In the last quarter, Woo pointed out, Quantum Computing brought in just $3.7 million from a company it acquired. The all-cash $100 million deal for Luminar Semiconductor closed in February.

Woo is betting on Quantum Computing's Qatalyst software product, which enables programmers to solve computational problems without knowing low-level quantum coding. But the burgeoning market for quantum technology still holds the biggest potential for both Quantum Computing and its peers.

"As quantum computing hardware continues to advance, we expect a corresponding growth in demand for quantum software to run on these computers," Woo wrote.

McPeake sees "catalysts likely ahead" as Quantum Computing gears up to launch a more powerful version of its Dirac 3 system, "with a separate next-gen hardware platform also in the pipeline."

Dirac is the company's flagship quantum computer, first released over the cloud in 2022. In 2024, Quantum Computing won a contract from NASA to make satellite radar images sharper and more accurate using a third-generation machine.

Since then, Quantum Computing has gained traction on the commercial front. McPeake noted that the company sold a $332,000 system to an unnamed "large financial institution" last year and conducted a live cybersecurity demo at a conference in March.

McPeake expects Quantum Computing's quantum networking and security revenue to grow, but the real key to the company's expansion is product miniaturization. "Management sees a broader market" once the company condenses its bulky, rack-mounted systems into smaller chips in a few years, he wrote.

Quantum Computing still has plenty of skeptics to win over and a stock price that has a long way to go to catch up with its peers. But as more analysts bang the drum, this puzzling quantum play might finally start making sense.

Write to Mackenzie Tatananni at mackenzie.tatananni@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

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June 15, 2026 13:12 ET (17:12 GMT)

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