IonQ (IONQ) announced the acquisition of a UK rival Monday and unveiled results of a collaboration involving semiconductor titan Nvidia (NVDA).
IonQ said Monday it reached a deal to acquire UK quantum computing firm Oxford Ionics in a $1.08 billion primarily stock deal. The move “accelerates our mission to full fault-tolerant quantum computers with 2 million physical qubits and 80,000 logical qubits by 2030,” IonQ CEO Niccolo de Masi said. Qubits are a measure of quantum computing power.
IonQ stock rose 3% in recent trading. The shares are down about 4% in 2025 so far. Elsewhere in the sector, Quantum Computing (QUBT) added 7%, Rigetti (RGTI) shares were up 2%, and D-Wave Quantum (QBTS) stock slid 1%.
Meanwhile, IonQ reported on its collaboration with Nvidia, Amazon (AMZN) Web Services, and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca (AZN) on the use of quantum computing in small molecule drug development. It said the project, which demonstrated a large-scale simulation of a chemical reaction used in the synthesis of pharmaceutical drugs, delivered a solution 20 times faster than previous benchmarks. IonQ said it will present further results this week at the ISC High Performance conference in Hamburg, Germany.
Last month, IonQ shares rocketed higher after CEO Niccolo de Masi said aims to become the Nvidia of quantum computing. IonQ is “in the business of quantum just like Nvidia and Broadcom are in the business of classical GPUs,” de Masi said in an interview with Barron’s. “I believe IonQ will be the Nvidia player.”