IonQ Gains Control Of Chip Supply With SkyWater Foundry Deal

IonQ has raised its full-year 2026 revenue outlook to between $260 million and $270 million, signaling continued growth in the quantum computing sector following the completed acquisition of SkyWater Technology. At its Investor Day held at the New York Stock Exchange, the publicly traded company, founded in 2015 by Christopher Monroe and Jungsang Kim, detailed a strategy of vertical integration spanning computing, sensing, networking, and quantum-safe security. This integration, bolstered by SkyWater’s manufacturing capabilities, positions IonQ to deliver its Superion 256 system with initial customer deliveries scheduled for 2027.

Superion 256 Hardware: Scaling to Millions of Qubits

Superion 256 hardware represents a shift in IonQ’s strategy, moving beyond simply building quantum computers to establishing a fully integrated platform capable of scaling to millions of qubits. Initial customer deliveries of the flagship system are scheduled for 2027, a timeline enabled by architectural breakthroughs and the recent acquisition of SkyWater Technology.

Chris Ballance, IonQ President of Quantum Computing, explained the necessity for this redesign: “If we want to build out systems with orders of magnitude more qubits and deploy orders of magnitude more of them, which we definitely do, we need to radically simplify the platform.” This simplification is about accelerating the entire development cycle and increasing qubit count. A key innovation driving this scalability is Electronic Qubit Control, or EQC, originating from the acquisition of Oxford Ionics.