IonQ Is Following Nvidia's Playbook. Why the Stock Could Be a Buy After a 60% Dip.

IonQ (IONQ +9.32%) CEO Niccolo de Masi has stated that he wants his company to become the Nvidia (NVDA -1.84%) of quantum computing. This means he wants IonQ not just to develop a fault-tolerant quantum computer but to control the entire quantum ecosystem.

While Nvidia is best known for its powerful graphics processing units (GPUs) that are the primary chips used to run artificial intelligence (AI) workloads, the company’s dominance stems from its ecosystem. Its CUDA software platform is where most original AI code was written and remains an important moat today. Meanwhile, the development of the company’s NVLink interconnect system, which enables multiple GPUs to operate as a single, massive unit, has further widened its moat.

Nvidia also hasn’t been afraid to make important acquisitions and incorporate acquired companies’ technology into its ecosystem. It did this with Mellanox and networking in 2020, which is one of its fastest-growing businesses today and helps provide the foundation for its complete end-to-end AI factories. Nvidia also smartly “acquired” Groq and its language processing units (LPUs) to boost its inference offering, while scooping up critical AI software layers through additions like SchedMD and Hugging Face.

IonQ: An aggressive acquirer

IonQ has taken a page out of Nvidia’s playbook and been very aggressive in making acquisitions across the quantum ecosystem. One of its most important acquisitions was Oxford Ionics in 2025. IonQ was able to incorporate Oxford’s Electronic Qubit Control (EQC) technology, which embeds microwave antennas directly into chips, into its own technology. This helped it achieve a record 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity, while significantly reducing its reliance on complex, bulky control laser arrays to manipulate its trapped ions.

EQC could be one of the key technologies that helps IonQ eventually develop a fault-tolerant quantum computer that can be commercialized. In addition to helping IonQ achieve an industry-leading low error rate, it also provides the company with quantum chips that can be manufactured by traditional foundries. Relying on chips that needed manual laser alignments and custom optical tables would likely never scale.

However, this technology alone isn’t enough; IonQ also needs to connect these EQC chips. This is where its quantum networking acquisitions of Lightsynq and Qubitekk come in. With Qubitekk, it received a robust quantum networking patent portfolio and the hardware needed to build distributed quantum systems and secure optical networks. Lightsynq, meanwhile, gave IonQ high-bandwidth photonic interconnects capable of connecting multiple quantum chips.

IonQ has even taken it a step further than Nvidia by becoming vertically integrated through its acquisition of quantum foundry SkyWater earlier this year. By having its own foundry, IonQ should be able to advance its technology roadmap more quickly and eventually allow it to scale more rapidly. While I wouldn’t recommend the average chip company running a foundry business, it has clear advantages for emerging technologies with things like rapid prototyping.

Meanwhile, IonQ’s most recently announced acquisition of Elisity pushes it further into the security market. This isn’t the company’s first acquisition in the space, though. Last year, it acquired ID Quantique, which brought it Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), Quantum Random Number Generation (QRNG), and single-photon detectors that are part of a quantum cryptography system designed to protect optical networks from hacking by quantum computers. Elisity, in turn, will give IonQ an enterprise zero-trust technology solution.

By combining the two technologies, IonQ will be able to offer an end-to-end security platform that protects enterprise networks against both current threats and future quantum decryption risks. Given how AI has changed the cybersecurity landscape, putting in place a platform that can guard against future quantum attacks is actually quite ingenious.

In addition to these deals, IonQ has also acquired companies in the areas of quantum sensing, transmission, and software orchestration. It truly is developing a complete quantum ecosystem, which potentially positions it to become the quantum computing leader in the future, much like Nvidia did in the AI space.

With the quantum computing stock down around 60% from its highs, now looks like a good opportunity to bet on this high-risk, high-reward stock that could eventually control the entire quantum ecosystem.