Quantum bubble well and truly popped as pure-play stocks shed $13 billion in value

The combined market value of Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum, IonQ, and Quantum Computing roughly doubled in less than a month from early December through early January, peaking above $21 billion after Alphabet’s Willow chip made the industry the hot new stock market theme.

That quartet has since shed more than half of its value, losing a combined $13 billion and counting in market cap since January 6. The following day was when Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang remarked that quantum computers were likely decades away from being “very useful.” (Huang then kind of backtracked by announcing that Nvidia’s March conference would include a Quantum Day to celebrate and explore “this remarkable progress” in the space.)

Subsequent potential catalysts for the space, like Microsoft unveiling a quantum chip that uses “a new state of matter” and Amazon following suit with its own quantum chip breakthrough, have failed to ignite interest in these pure-play quantum stocks the way Alphabet’s Willow chip did in in December. The cohort has lost all the market value they gained in the wake of that announcement, and then some.