Quantum computing stocks climbed after President Trump signed two executive orders on June 22, 2026, intended to accelerate U.S. work on the technology, according to Fortune. The moves extended a rally that has made the sector one of the year's most volatile trades.
Who moved
The sharpest gains went to smaller, government-linked names. Quantinuum — formed in 2021 through the merger of Honeywell Quantum Solutions and Cambridge Quantum — led the pack, up more than 13% at the close. Infleqtion rose about 12% and D-Wave Quantum added roughly 2%, while IBM, a far larger and profitable company, gained about 5%. Other pure-play names including IonQ and Rigetti Computing also advanced, Investing.com reported.
What the orders do
The first order establishes a federal initiative — branded QC-ADDS — directing agencies to build the first quantum computer capable of supporting meaningful scientific research at a Department of Energy facility. It also requires the Pentagon to deploy at least three next-generation quantum sensing projects by 2028, Fortune reported.
The second order addresses security. It instructs federal agencies to migrate their most sensitive systems to so-called post-quantum, or quantum-resistant, encryption by the early 2030s, with federal contractors held to similar requirements. The concern is that a sufficiently powerful future quantum computer could break much of today's encryption. The orders follow a May announcement of roughly $2 billion in federal quantum funding, as CNBC reported, part of why the sector has grown so sensitive to policy news.
Company executives welcomed the moves. IBM chief executive Arvind Krishna pointed to "sound policy, sustained investment, and public-private partnership" as vital to U.S. leadership, per Fortune.
What quantum computing is, and why investors care
Classical computers process information as bits, each a 0 or a 1. Quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits, which can hold a blend of both states at once through a property called superposition; linking qubits through entanglement lets a machine evaluate many possibilities in parallel. In principle, that could let quantum systems tackle problems in chemistry, materials science, logistics and cryptography that are impractical for conventional machines.
That promise is why investors have piled in: pure-play quantum names have risen sharply since the spring, drawn by government funding and policy catalysts rather than profits.
The caution
Analysts and the companies themselves stress that the technology is still maturing. Qubits are extraordinarily fragile, often requiring temperatures near absolute zero and heavy isolation, and error rates remain high. Fault-tolerant, broadly useful quantum computers may be a decade away. Investing.com described the field as one where "commercial adoption remains years away" for much of the industry, and called the stocks among Wall Street's most volatile technology trades of the year.
Many pure-play quantum firms remain unprofitable and lean heavily on government contracts, which makes their shares unusually sensitive to headlines like this week's. These are speculative, high-volatility securities; this article is news, not investment advice.
