For all the vast complexity of the quantum world, Peter Chapman can break things down pretty simply. Chapman is president and CEO of IonQ, the only publicly traded pure-play quantum computing company in the world. Headquartered in College Park, Maryland, it is among the most promising players in the emerging quantum computing space.
“We’re not talking about a small change in computational power here,” Chapman says. “We’re talking about solving problems in one second that would take 300 trillion years on the world’s largest supercomputer. That’s what the excitement’s all about.”
More prosaically: “If you have a credit card and five dollars,” Chapman tells Site Selection, “you could right now run your first application on a quantum computer. It’s really easy to get access to.”
It’s true. Those curious enough to take quantum out for a spin can run programs and perform calculations on IonQ’s “trapped ion” systems via Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud. That signature offering has placed the growing business firmly within a conversation that skews toward technology giants like IBM, Google and Microsoft. Founded only in 2015 and based within the expanding Discovery District of the University of Maryland (UMD), IonQ went public in 2021 and is valued today at some $2 billion. It was named to Time’s 100 Most Influential Companies list last year.
UMD is a Magnet for Quantum
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