IonQ has introduced the Superion 256, a 256-qubit quantum computer designed for mass production. The system is based on control chips manufactured on standard semiconductor lines, which the company claims allows for volume production. The first unit was pre-sold in the first quarter of the year.
The hardware is produced at SkyWater Technology Inc., a foundry that IonQ acquired in a $1.8 billion deal in January. Using this facility, IonQ reduced the design cycle from nine months to two and increased wafer lot production by 12 times over six months compared to its previous partner.
The system utilizes Electronic Qubit Control technology, acquired through the $1.075 billion purchase of Oxford Ionics Ltd. last year. This approach replaces traditional laser arrays with on-chip electronics. The system fits into a standard server rack, consumes less power than a GPU rack, and uses standard data center cooling.
The company is developing the Superion 10K, which incorporates CMOS on-chip and the Walking Cat fault-tolerant architecture published in April. IonQ expects to achieve full fault tolerance in the lab by 2027 and a commercial version by 2028. This transition is expected to reduce the cost per qubit by more than 300 times.
IonQ also released a resource estimate for running Shor's algorithm against the secp256k1 elliptic curve used by Bitcoin. The company estimates the task would require 19,397 physical qubits and 25.7 days, a capacity close to the machines planned for 2028.
