Quantum Dreams & Stock Quibbles

by

D-Wave Quantum, ticker symbol QBTS, did better than IonQ, ticker IONQ, over the last year. A curious thing, stock performance. It suggests someone, somewhere, believed more in D-Wave’s particular brand of quantum hoping. Both companies are chasing the same ghost, really – a computer that doesn’t think in ones and zeros, but in…well, something else entirely. So it goes.

Let’s look at which one might not lose quite so much money, eventually. Investing in quantum computing is a bit like betting on the first manned mission to Alpha Centauri. It could happen. It’s just…unlikely to make you rich before you’re dust.

D-Wave: Two Shots in the Dark

D-Wave is trying two things. Quantum annealing, which is like asking a very complicated question of a very confused pigeon, and then traditional gate-based quantum computing. The pigeon part is, admittedly, a simplification. They’re good at optimization problems, finding the best route for a delivery truck, for instance. It’s specialized, sure, but someone’s got to figure out the best way to get your cat food delivered.

Think of it like this: a general-purpose computer is a Swiss Army knife. Annealing is a single, very sharp blade. Good for one thing. Efficient, perhaps. But what happens when you need a corkscrew? It’s the same with ASICs versus GPUs. One does one thing well. The other does…more things, less well. D-Wave has over a hundred customers paying for this pigeon-guided optimization. A small miracle, really. They’re starting to see revenue tick up. It’s a start.

Loading widget...

But annealing isn’t the grand prize. It’s not the thing that will rewrite the laws of physics. So, they’re also chasing the gate-based dream. They’re using something called fluxonium qubits, which they claim are close cousins to the annealing qubits. They bought Quantum Circuits to help. They raised money by selling more stock. It’s all a bit frantic, really. Like a dog chasing its tail, hoping to catch up with the future.

IonQ: The Accuracy Folks

IonQ is going straight for the gate-based prize. They’re using trapped ions – actual atoms. Identical atoms, which is nice. Stability is good. Quantum computers are notoriously error-prone. Qubits are in this weird state called superposition, which is how they do all their fancy calculations. But being in superposition also makes them…fragile. Like a house of cards in a hurricane.

Superposition is the key. It lets them try all possible solutions at once. But it also means a stray vibration or a temperature change can ruin everything. IonQ’s trapped ions are remarkably stable. They’ve achieved 99.99% two-qubit fidelity. That’s…impressive. Like getting a perfect score on a test you didn’t study for. So it goes.

Loading widget...

They’re not just building a computer, though. They’re building an ecosystem. Software to reduce errors. Quantum Error Correction codes. They bought LightSynq for interconnect technology. Oxford Ionics to shrink the size of their computers. Capella and Vector Atomic for satellite distribution and quantum sensing. It’s a sprawling, ambitious project. Like trying to build a city on the moon.

The Verdict

D-Wave and IonQ are the best of a rather limited bunch. D-Wave has a niche with annealing. It’s not a big niche, but it’s a niche. IonQ is leading the charge on accuracy and building a full-fledged quantum ecosystem. It’s a more ambitious, and therefore, more risky, endeavor.

I suspect IonQ has the longer-term potential. But both remain high-risk, high-reward stocks. Investing in quantum computing is, fundamentally, an act of faith. A faith that someone, somewhere, will figure out how to bend reality to their will. And if they do, well…that’s a story for another time. So it goes.

Read More

2026-01-23 17:34