Peter Chapman is the President and CEO of IonQ, a leading quantum computing company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company’s trapped ion-based quantum computers are exploiting the potential of quantum mechanics, a radically different approach to processing information.
“This is a new kind of computing modality,” Chapman began in a recent interview at the New York Stock Exchange. “Everyone today knows about digital computing, but there’s a set of problems in the natural world that digital computing will not be able to solve, and we needed a new kind of computer, and that kind of computer is a quantum computer.”
IonQ recently issued a strong first quarter financial report for 2024.
Quantum computers operate on principles of quantum mechanics, rather than the classical digital paradigm of zeros and ones. As Chapman explained: “In digital computing, you have zeros and ones, what we call bits. But in the natural world, it’s not based on digital, it’s not based on analog — it’s based on quantum mechanics. So if you want to represent what we do in Mother Nature, in reality, you need this kind of computer that can speak its language.”
On the broad applicability of quantum computing, Chapman had this to say: “Just about every industry will be using quantum computing in the future. It’s not limited to one particular industry — it’s like computing in general. It’s something where everyone uses it, everyone needs it.”
While the field is still nascent, he continued about his company’s novel approach.
“We’re just at the very beginning,” said Chapman. “It’s all about the underlying hardware. We use a natural qubit — which Mother Nature gives us — instead of something man-made,” he went on. This focus on leveraging nature’s quantum properties is key to IonQ’s innovative quantum computing solutions.
As industries try to deal with the increasingly complex computational challenges, IonQ’s quantum computers hold the promise of never-before-seen processing power, opening up new and exciting avenues in fields like chemistry, optimization and machine learning (ML). The quantum revolution is underway, and IonQ aims to be at the front of the line.
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