Corporate research and commercial division
Appears in 3 stories · Last updated Nov 1, 2026
Targeting million-qubit systems by 2030
Quantum computers could help with drug discovery, codebreaking and materials science, but only if they grow from dozens of quantum bits (qubits) to millions. The bottleneck is control: each qubit needs precisely steered light or microwaves, and thousands of cables run into refrigerators colder than deep space. Chipmakers are trying to move that control hardware onto standard production lines, as CU Boulder's December 2025 optical modulator did.
Updated Nov 1
As of July 2026: Committed $10 billion to quantum through 2031; building Anderon superconducting foundry with $1B federal funding
Quantum computers can already outperform classical supercomputers on specific tasks, as Google's Willow chip demonstrated when it solved in five minutes a problem that would take the fastest machines 10 septillion years. The breakthrough, announced in October 2025, marks the first verifiable quantum advantage, achieved with Google's Quantum Echoes algorithm, which is 13,000 times faster than supercomputers. But scaling from 100-qubit systems to the million-qubit machines needed for real-world applications requires control hardware that doesn't exist, and current laser systems are tabletop-sized, power-hungry, and impossible to replicate thousands of times over.
Updated Jul 9
As of May 2026: Incumbent with the most extensive published roadmap to fault tolerance
Quantum computing has spent four decades as a physics experiment with a marketing team. On May 6, 2026, IonQ reported $50 million in quarterly revenue, up roughly 556% from a year earlier, and reaffirmed full-year guidance of $225 to $245 million. As one of the field's leading pure-play companies, it's now on track for a quarter-billion-dollar year.
Updated May 31
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