Rigetti CEO Subodh Kulkarni said in a press release last month that the company has “a clear understanding of what we need to do to achieve 99.5% average two-qubit gate fidelity” in its Cepheus-1-108Q system, which will be released this quarter. But even if it can reach that benchmark, it still has a long way to go.

For a quantum computer to be commercially viable, it is estimated to need at least 1 million physical qubits and a two-qubit gate fidelity of 99.99% (and probably closer to 99.99999%). So we’re still a long way from quantum computing becoming mainstream.

Rigetti believes he is on track to develop a system with 1,000 qubits by 2027 with a two-qubit gate fidelity of 99.7%, but has not given long-term estimates. Rival IonQ is targeting a 10,000-qubit system by 2027 and a 2-million-qubit system by 2030. If Rigetti were to scale on a similar trajectory, it would achieve a 200,000-qubit system by 2030 and break the 1-million-qubit threshold by 2031.

But there’s no way of knowing how accurate such a massive system would be, or whether Rigetti can beat IonQ at its peak, as well as pocket rivals like Google and IBM.

So is Rigetti a buy now? None but the most risk-tolerant investors should consider this: the company is too speculative and a lot can change between now and 2030.

On the other hand, according to data from McKinsey & Company, the quantum computing market could reach $72 billion by 2030. If Rigetti can control a large enough piece of that pie, he could be a big winner from there. But they would have to go Rigetti’s way for that to happen, and right now there’s no way to know how things will change in this rapidly developing field.

For investors looking to get in on the quantum computing trend early, Rigetti isn’t a bad choice, but it’s probably not a good idea to put all your eggs in one (quantum) basket. I would rather take a small stake in Rigetti alongside other quantum computing companies or invest in one Quantum Computing ETF to be able to give me the best odds of picking a winner. And I definitely wouldn’t invest money I couldn’t afford to lose.

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John Bromels has positions in Alphabet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, International Business Machines and IonQ. The Motley Fool has one disclosure policy.

Is Rigetti Stock (RGTI) a Buy Now? was originally published by The Motley Fool