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IonQ Just Announced a Major Breakthrough. Should Investors Buy the Stock Now?

Source The Motley Fool

Key Points

Shares of IonQ have fallen 40% in the past 12 months.
IonQ's breakthrough and a Nvidia deployment gave the stock a boost this week.
10 stocks we like better than IonQ ›

Quantum computers have a real problem. Small errors slip into calculations all the time, and catching and fixing them fast enough has been a real issue for the industry. On Tuesday, Sept. 22, IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) said it may have found a solution to this problem.

IonQ's statement said it has developed the industry's first end-to-end, real-time quantum error-correction decoder. Even better, this breakthrough runs on a single standard CPU. This gives IonQ a real edge in this highly competitive race.

Missed AI’s "Act 1"? Act 2 Could Be 15x Bigger. Most investors think they missed the AI boat because they didn't buy Nvidia in 2005. But according to our analysts, we’re only at the end of "Act 1"—the R&D phase. "Act 2" is the global rollout. Continue »

The day after the announcement, IonQ also said its Superion 256 will become the first on-premises quantum processor at Nvidia's (NASDAQ: NVDA) Accelerated Quantum Research Center.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

The stock price rose more than 11% on Wednesday, in line with the good news. IonQ remains a high-risk, speculative investment. In particular, the decoder was validated on simulated data rather than in a live system. How commercially viable quantum computing will be in the coming years remains to be seen.

IonQ's valuation is also quite rich. It's deeply unprofitable as well. Investors interested in this space should recognize the sector's longer time horizon and volatility. Shares of IonQ have actually fallen more than 40% in the past year.

For investors willing to stay invested for the next several years as this nascent sector finds its footing and use cases, this IonQ breakthrough is significant enough to consider buying the stock, in my opinion.

Should you buy stock in IonQ right now?

Before you buy stock in IonQ, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and IonQ wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $383,680!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,382,954!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 937% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 214% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of September 27, 2026.

Catie Hogan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends IonQ and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Disclaimer: For information purposes only. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

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