Can Investing $10,000 in IonQ Make You a Millionaire?

IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) has been one of the hottest stocks in the market in 2025. The stock is up over 40% year to date, but was up by almost 100% at its peak. IonQ has been selling off in recent weeks alongside its quantum computing peers as the market pivots toward a more risk-off approach.

This sell-off could be a buying opportunity for those who missed out on the initial surge. But has it gotten deep enough that there's a reasonable chance for a $10,000 investment made in IonQ today to someday grow into a position worth $1 million?

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The value of trapped-ion quantum computing

IonQ is taking an unusual approach to quantum computing compared to many of its peers. While other leaders in the space such as IBM and Alphabet are using superconducting qubits, and Microsoft is using an approach called topological qubits, IonQ uses a trapped-ion approach. This comes with a few key advantages.

First, while it still requires the actual trapped ions at the heart of the system to be cooled to temperatures just above absolute zero, the supporting equipment can stay at room temperature. That's in contrast to superconducting quantum computers, which require complicated and expensive cooling systems.

Second, it delivers more accurate results. Recently, IonQ announced that it had achieved 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity, which measures the accuracy of a quantum calculation after passing through two processing gates.

Most of its competitors haven't reached 99.9% accuracy, let alone 99.99%. While that may sound like a minuscule improvement, it's a large leap in accuracy. At 99.9% fidelity, a system can be expected to make one error per 1,000 calculations, while at 99.99% fidelity, it would be one error in 10,000 calculations. But that jump in accuracy comes at a cost.

The trapped-ion approach has far slower processing speeds than a superconducting machine. This could be an issue years down the road if its competitors can produce similarly accurate results but at meaningfully faster speeds. However, if IonQ can beat the competition to the punch by offering an accurate computer that can be used reliably in real-world situations, then it may be able to gain enough of a first-mover advantage to carve out a large market share.

It's also worth noting that 99.99% fidelity is far from the level that will be needed to make this technology viable. Some estimates suggest that to reach the point where quantum machines have an advantage over classical ones, a fidelity of 99.9999% will be required -- essentially, one error in 1 million calculations.

Most companies project that useful quantum computing won't arrive until 2030 at the earliest. This leaves a lot of time for other rivals to gain ground, but if IonQ can stay competitive in this race, could it eventually turn a $10,000 investment into a position worth $1 million?

IonQ would be a monster company if it grew 100 times larger

IonQ currently has a market cap of about $21 billion. So, if it turned $10,000 into $1 million (a 100x return), it would be worth $2.1 trillion. But is that a realistic possibility?

Estimates vary widely about the potential size of the quantum computing market. One of IonQ's competitors, Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ: RGTI), estimates that the quantum computing market will reach $15 billion to $30 billion in annual sales between 2030 and 2040. If IonQ captured 100% of that market, generated $30 billion in annual sales, and achieved a 50% profit margin -- as Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) does today with its graphics processing units -- IonQ would generate $15 billion in annual profits. If the market assigned an earnings multiple of 50 to that business, that would make it a $750 billion company.

That would be about a third the size IonQ would need to be to achieve a 100-bagger return, and that result is based on some incredibly bullish assumptions. As such, I don't think it's capable of delivering the necessary returns to become that sort of millionaire-maker stock.

It should still be a highly profitable investment if its tech ends up capturing the majority of the quantum computing market opportunity. Yet there's no guarantee that IonQ will even come out among the winners in the quantum computing race -- and if it falls behind, its stock could go to $0.

One final caveat: Rigetti and others may be underestimating the market opportunity for quantum computing. For reference, Nvidia has generated $165 billion in revenue over its past four reported quarters. If the value of quantum processing units to the tech world eventually proves similar to GPUs, IonQ could wind up a millionaire-maker stock after all.

Keithen Drury has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends IonQ and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.