15 months after crippling quantum computing stocks, Nvidia has sent the industry back into the stratosphere

All of the technological breakthroughs, sales deals, and acquisitions haven’t mattered much for quantum computing companies in 2026.

The speculative fever had broken, with call volumes traded and most retail darling assets having peaked in October, and the subsequent risk-off move during the Mideast war accelerated the retreat from expensive, thematic plays.

Then along came Nvidia to the rescue — the company that kneecapped the industry in Q1 2025 when CEO Jensen Huang said it would likely be a couple decades before quantum computers were “very useful.”

On Tuesday, the chip designer released a family of open models (dubbed Ising) designed to leverage AI to improve calibration and error correction for quantum computers, “two of the most critical challenges in building hybrid-quantum classical systems,” per the press release.

D-Wave Quantum, IonQ, Rigetti Computing, and Quantum Computing have surged between 23% and 42% over the past three sessions, as of 9:50 a.m. ET.

These stocks are all poised for their best weeks since September, and the return of intense call buying definitely appears to be magnifying the buying pressure:

Infleqtion, the relative newcomer on the scene, is up about 16% since Monday’s close.

True to form, Huang threw a bit of a backhanded compliment to the industry along with this lifeline.

“AI is essential to making quantum computing practical,” he said.