IonQ will acquire the assets of Qubitekk in an all-cash deal for $22 million and members of the Qubitekk team will be joining the company. The deal also includes acquisition of Qubitekk’s 118 U.S. and international patents in the areas of quantum networking hardware and quantum network security. IonQ has been investing in quantum networking technology in recent years with an acquisition of the assets of Entangled Networks in 2023 and a $54.4 million contract with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) for researching quantum networking.
Qubitekk is one of the few U.S. based companies developing products for this area. Their product line includes entangled photon sources, single photon counting modules, full quantum networks, and education products. Qubitekk is also the key supplier for the EPB Quantum Network by Qubitekk in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Quantum networking technology is extremely important for future IonQ products because with their ion trap technology creating very large quantum systems that can solve significant problems will requiring connecting multiple processor modules in a network to achieve the desired size. The company also announcing a step in this direction by achieving a breakthrough and demonstrating ion-ion interconnect entanglement.
The acquisition is expected to close within the next 6 months. For more information you can visit a press release provided by IonQ here.
November 6, 2024