IonQ is to acquire Oxford Ionics in a transaction valued at US$1.075 billion.
The transaction will bring together IonQ’s quantum compute, application and networking stack with Oxford Ionics’ groundbreaking ion-trap technology manufactured on standard semiconductor chips.
The combined company expects to build systems with 256 physical qubits at accuracies of 99.99% by 2026 and advance to over 10,000 physical qubits with logical accuracies of 99.99999% by 2027.
The quantum computing market is projected to create up to US$850 billion of global economic value by 2040 according to Boston Consulting Group. The management teams believe the transaction will enable the combined company to pioneer breakthroughs in quantum computing.
“IonQ’s vision has always been to drive real-world impact in every era and year of quantum computing’s growth. Our intention to acquire Oxford Ionics accelerates our mission to full fault-tolerant quantum computers with 2 million physical qubits and 80,000 logical qubits by 2030,” said Niccolo de Masi, CEO, IonQ.
“We’re tremendously excited to work alongside the world-class quantum computing and networking teams at IonQ. Together, we intend to move faster than any other player in the industry to deliver the leading fault-tolerant quantum computers with transformative value for customers,” said CEO of Oxford Ionics, Dr. Chris Balance, CEO, Oxford Ionics.
The acquisition of Oxford Ionics follows IonQ’s recent quantum computing and networking momentum, including the recent acquisition of Lightsynq and pending acquisition of Capella.
