IonQ (NYSE:IONQ) is a leading developer of quantum computing systems, specializing in trapped-ion technology. Founded in 2015 as a spinout from the University of Maryland and Duke University, IonQ pioneered advances in quantum hardware by leveraging individual charged atoms as qubits. The company is headquartered in College Park, Maryland, and maintains additional research and engineering facilities in Seattle, Washington. Since its inception, IonQ has focused on building universal, gate-based quantum computers that aim to deliver high-fidelity operations and scalable architectures suitable for commercial and scientific applications.
IonQ’s product lineup includes dedicated quantum processing units (QPUs) and integrated software platforms designed to simplify the development and execution of quantum algorithms. The company’s flagship systems, such as IonQ Aria and IonQ Forte, offer incremental improvements in qubit count, coherence time, and gate fidelity. Complementing its hardware, IonQ provides a cloud-based software suite that features a compiler, scheduler, and runtime environment, enabling researchers, developers, and enterprises to program quantum circuits and submit jobs remotely via APIs.
To broaden access and accelerate practical use cases, IonQ has forged partnerships with major cloud service providers, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, where its quantum computers are available through managed services. These strategic alliances bring IonQ technology to a global audience of academic institutions, government agencies, and private-sector organizations. Key industries exploring applications range from pharmaceutical research and materials science to financial modeling, logistics optimization, and cryptography.
The company’s leadership team is headed by Chief Executive Officer Peter Chapman, who joined IonQ in 2021 and brings extensive experience in technology commercialization and strategic corporate development. IonQ was co-founded by Dr. Christopher Monroe and Dr. Jungsang Kim, both renowned physicists whose early research laid the foundation for trapped-ion quantum information processing. Under this leadership, IonQ continues to advance toward the goal of fault-tolerant quantum computing while fostering a growing ecosystem of hardware partners, software developers, and end users around the world.
