Should You Forget Palantir and Buy These 3 Quantum Computing Stocks Instead?

The article argues that Alphabet, IonQ, and D-Wave Quantum offer potentially more attractive quantum-computing upside than Palantir, whose shares trade at roughly 82x forward earnings. Alphabet trades at 23x forward earnings and cites Google Quantum AI's Willow chip completing a calculation in under five minutes that conventional supercomputers would take 10 septillion years to process; IonQ reported Q2 2026 revenue growth of 287% to $80.1 million, while D-Wave posted flat Q2 revenue of $3.1 million. Analyst targets imply more than 70% upside for IonQ and over 100% for D-Wave, although both companies remain unprofitable and carry substantial valuation and execution risk.

Analysis

The investable distinction is not quantum exposure but funding durability. GOOG can monetize quantum as a cloud-service option while its core cash generation absorbs a decade of technical slippage; IONQ and QBTS require continuing equity issuance or unusually rapid bookings conversion. That makes GOOG the cleanest 6-18 month expression if enterprise quantum interest lifts cloud differentiation, whereas the pure plays trade primarily on milestones, partnerships, and capital-markets access rather than near-term earnings power.

IONQ's claimed vertical-integration advantage should be treated as a diligence trigger, not an earnings catalyst, until ownership structure, foundry capacity, required capex, and external-customer economics are independently confirmed. If real, domestic fabrication control could improve government/procurement eligibility and reduce component bottlenecks; if it is principally strategic positioning, the market will eventually re-rate the company on dilution-adjusted backlog and gross-margin progression. SKYT could be a second-order beneficiary only if it retains economic exposure to incremental quantum-fabrication volumes rather than merely providing a one-time transaction asset.

Consensus appears to be conflating analyst target dispersion with probability-weighted value. QBTS has the most asymmetric headline upside but also the highest sensitivity to a missed technical roadmap or a single weak financing window; its commercial optimization niche may generate earlier pilots, yet those deployments need not validate fault-tolerant gate-model economics. Over the next 1-3 months, speculative flows can persist; over 6-18 months, quarterly bookings, cash burn, and share-count growth should dominate. The key falsifier for a GOOG-over-pure-play view is a material contracted revenue ramp at IONQ/QBTS that outpaces dilution and demonstrates repeatable production workloads.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Initiate a 6-12 month relative-value position: long GOOG / short an equal-dollar basket of IONQ and QBTS. The thesis is that GOOG retains quantum optionality without binary financing risk; target 15-25% relative outperformance. Exit if either pure play reports two consecutive quarters of accelerating contracted backlog with improving gross margin and cash runway above 24 months without equity issuance.
• Do not chase IONQ on analyst-price-target momentum. Set an event-driven buy alert only after verification of fabrication-control economics and evidence that quarterly bookings convert to revenue without a material increase in cash burn; use a position size no greater than one-third of a normal software allocation given milestone and dilution risk.
• For QBTS, treat any position as a small, defined-risk catalyst trade rather than a core long: consider 6-9 month call spreads only after a disclosed customer deployment or technical benchmark, funded by selling higher strikes. Avoid unhedged common until management demonstrates that optimization pilots are producing recurring revenue; a capital raise or lowered roadmap confidence would invalidate the setup.
• Monitor SKYT for transaction disclosures, capacity commitments, and capex guidance. A confirmed multiyear quantum-related wafer agreement could justify a tactical long; absent such evidence, do not assume the quantum narrative creates incremental foundry earnings.