On August 5, IonQ (NYSE:IONQ) delivered the strongest quarter in its history, yet the stock still trades well below where it stood a year ago. That gap sits at the center of the quantum computing story right now: a business growing revenue at triple-digit rates while burning cash faster every quarter. Investors chasing the "quantum is the new AI" trade have to decide which number matters more.
Second-quarter revenue hit $80.1 million, up 287% year-over-year and about 20% above the midpoint of IonQ's own guidance, marking its fifth straight quarter of record results. Remaining performance obligations, a measure of contracted future revenue, jumped to $485 million from $122 million a year earlier, and management raised full-year guidance to $280 million to $290 million. The manufacturing story is catching up.
IonQ closed its $1.8 billion acquisition of semiconductor foundry SkyWater and used that partnership to produce its first fully integrated quantum processing chips, now being tested at its College Park facility ahead of a 256-qubit system targeted for 2027. IonQ also reported breakeven quantum error correction using qLDPC codes on a test system, a step toward the fault-tolerant machines the whole industry is chasing. The platform keeps widening too.
Multiproduct sales, customers buying more than one IonQ offering, grew 40% year over year and now make up about a quarter of quarterly revenue. IonQ launched a new quantum key distribution product, acquired photonics start-up Nexus Photonics, and now has 84 Skyloom optical communication terminals in orbit, double the year-ago count. Separately, its research pairing trapped-ion hardware with classical AI models points to an energy break-even around 34 qubits, aimed at AI's power problem.
Operating expenses reached $417.3 million for the quarter, with $160.6 million going to R&D, and adjusted EBITDA came in at negative $120.3 million. The operating loss for the quarter was $337 million, and free cash flow burn has climbed to roughly $570 million, worsening even as revenue scales. GAAP net loss hit $1.9 billion, though most of that was traced to a noncash $1.6 billion mark-to-market charge on warrant valuations rather than the underlying business.
The stock has felt that tension. Shares fell 31.6% in July amid heavy insider selling and a broader pullback from high-risk names, leaving IonQ about 47% below the all-time highs it set in late 2025. Share count has also nearly doubled over the past three years as the company has repeatedly tapped equity markets to fund its losses, a real headwind to per-share value.
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