Is IonQ Still a Buy Right Now?
IonQ has huge ambitions in quantum computing, but its losses, acquisitions, and lofty valuation make the stock a pretty speculative bet right now.
Overview
IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) has been on a tear over the past year or two. Since late 2024, the stock has posted multiple surges of 100% or more. And as people start to really talk about quantum computing and AI, you may be seeing the ticker everywhere. But right now, I don't think IonQ belongs in the "buy and forget it" bucket that many investors seem to place it in. While the company's press releases tell a compelling story, the gap between that narrative and its underlying risk profile is still wide enough to warrant caution.
Over the last couple of years, IonQ has tried to build itself into a one‑of‑a‑kind, full‑stack quantum platform that touches computing, networking, sensing, and security. It completed acquisitions of Oxford Ionics and Vector Atomic to pull cutting‑edge quantum hardware and sensing in‑house, and now describes itself as a "quantum platform and foundry" with ambitions to reach 2 million qubits by 2030.
Details
Last year, the company cited its world‑record 99.99% 2‑qubit gate fidelity and an algorithmic qubit score of 64 as evidence that its systems can, in theory, scale to fault‑tolerant quantum computing. In other words, IonQ believes its machines can run more complex quantum workloads with fewer errors, and it wants investors to see that as the foundation for a huge future market.
Source
Originally published at www.fool.com.