Shares of little-known Rigetti Computing surged Tuesday as excitement around quantum computing bubbled following a major announcement from Google. Rigetti last traded 50% higher to $6.76, on track for its second-biggest day on record. The stock soared more than 58% on Nov. 25, marking its best session ever. Google on late Monday said its new chip, called Willow, signals a breakthrough in quantum computing. According to the search giant, the semiconductor “can reduce errors exponentially as we scale up using more qubits.” A qubit, or quantum bit, is a unit used to encode data in such computers. RGTI YTD mountain RGTI year to date “Willow performed a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years — a number that vastly exceeds the age of the Universe,” Google claimed . Quantum computing does not have any real-world applications just yet. However, hedge fund manager Eric Jackson sees big gains ahead for the quantum computing space. “Quantum Computing is the next theme taking off after Crypto and AI. A lot of quantum names have been hot this week and today,” Jackson, who runs EMJ Capital, posted on social media platform X. “I am long $RGTI and they have a big opportunity in front of them and only a $1B market cap.” Rigetti shares have surged more than 570% this year. As of Monday’s close, the company has a market capitalization of $1.6 billion. BlackRock is Rigetti’s biggest institutional investor, owning a 4.5% stake, according to FactSet.
