Key quantum computing stock jumps 20% in a day, here's why

Shares of IonQ surged 20% connected April 14 to $35.76 aft the quantum computing institution landed a U.S. defence probe contract, putting the assemblage that has struggled for a portion successful the spotlight again.

IonQ said it has been selected for a programme tally by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon’s precocious probe arm, nether its Heterogeneous Architectures for Quantum (HARQ).

In elemental terms, DARPA is trying to lick 1 of quantum computing’s biggest problems: Different quantum machines contiguous are built utilizing antithetic technologies, and they don’t easy enactment together.

IonQ’s relation is to assistance link them, securing connection betwixt divers qubit species.

IonQ said it is gathering "a caller people of networked quantum computers that harvester chiseled qubit types... into an interconnected, high-performance architecture taking vantage of each modality’s strengths."

“We look guardant to collaborating with DARPA to fortify nationalist information by processing the quantum level which tin service arsenic a backbone for networking and scaling quantum systems,” CEO Niccolo de Masi said.

Despite Tuesday, April 14's rally, IonQ shares stay down astir 56% from their October 2025 highest supra $80.

The driblet reflects a broader reset crossed speculative tech, particularly companies tied to emerging technologies similar quantum computing that are inactive years distant from large-scale commercialization.

Investors person besides go much delicate to the agelong timelines to profitability and the existent constricted revenue, arsenic good arsenic rising unit among high-growth names.

Related: Cathie Wood buys $11 cardinal of tumbling megacap tech stock

IonQ is inactive not profitable, but its gross maturation outlook has been 1 of the cardinal supports for the stock.

In February, the institution reported $130.0 cardinal successful yearly gross for 2025, astir tripling from the anterior year.

But IonQ is inactive burning cash, with $2.4 cardinal successful operating and financing outflows past year. So however did it extremity with much than $1 cardinal successful currency successful the equilibrium sheet?

"The reply is simple: IonQ issued much than $3 cardinal of stock," the Motley Fool's tech expert Adam Spatacco wrote.

In different words, the institution is issuing further shares astatine a premium to rise currency and money maturation done banal sales, Spatacco explained, adding that it is "pumping their gross growth."

A regular machine works measurement by step, similar a librarian checking 1 publication astatine a time.

Quantum computers enactment differently. They tin research galore possibilities astatine once.