(Updated with stock close and link to press release)
IonQ (NYSE: IONQ), US quantum computer maker, is the first to place its machine inside NVIDIA's new quantum computing research center in Boston, the two companies announced Wednesday.
The choice to use IonQ's quantum computer whose technology is called "trapped ions" is interesting as it's not one of the four quantum computing companies Nvidia has announced investments in. Those are US companies QuEra, Quantinuum (Nasdaq: QNT), and PsiQuantum, and French startup Alice & Bob. Quantinuum also uses the trapped-ion technology for its quantum computers.
Following the news, IonQ stocks closed up 4.4% while Quantinuum fell about 2.5% .
“Every supercomputer will become a quantum supercomputer,” Timothy Costa, general manager for quantum at NVIDIA said in a press release.
Most quantum computing startups say they believe quantum computers will work inside today's data centers in tandem with the supercomputers. And there are already several startups whose machines have moved into government data centers in many countries, including the US. A single algorithm might run some steps on AI computers and others on the quantum computers.
IonQ's move in to NVIDIA's Accelerated Quantum Research Center (NVAQC) is special because it's two commercial firms controlling the research center, said Niccolo de Masi, IonQ CEO, during a press briefing ahead of the announcement. "We're going to be able to look at the full gamut of opportunity and challenge, but also go after the ones that have the demand signals," he said.
Some technical details:
-The NVAQC research center has 576 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs (8 racks of GB200 NVL72 systems) and one IonQ Superion 256 quantum machine.
-Company announcement: https://investors.ionq.com/news/news-details/2026/IonQ-to-Advance-Quantum-Supercomputing-by-Bringing-First-QPU-to-NVIDIA-Accelerated-Quantum-Research-Center/default.aspx