IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) has finalized an agreement with the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) to deliver a 100-qubit IonQ Tempo system, anchoring South Korea’s National Quantum Computing Center of Excellence. The system will be integrated directly into KISTI-6 (“HANKANG”), the nation’s largest high-performance computing (HPC) cluster. This deployment marks the first instance of on-site hybrid quantum-classical integration in South Korea, providing researchers and enterprise users with a secure private cloud environment for advanced computational research.
The technical focus of the partnership centers on the development of hybrid quantum-classical algorithms and infrastructure to address complex challenges in healthcare, finance, and materials science. By pairing IonQ’s trapped-ion QPU with KISTI’s flagship supercomputer, the initiative aims to bridge the gap between experimental quantum processing and industrial-scale HPC workflows. Megazone Cloud has been selected as the primary infrastructure partner to manage the cloud-based delivery of these services to South Korean academic and commercial institutions.
This collaboration expands IonQ’s significant footprint in the Asia-Pacific region, building on existing partnerships with Toyota Tsusho, Hyundai Motor Company, and Seoul National University. The agreement follows IonQ’s recent technical milestone of achieving 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity earlier in 2025. The Tempo 100 system is a core component of the company’s roadmap toward fault-tolerant computing and its ultimate goal of delivering systems with 2 million physical qubits by 2030.
Read the full announcement here.
December 24, 2025
