Could Investing $10,000 in Quantum Computing Leader IonQ Make You a Millionaire?

IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) made its way onto many investors' radars due to its dominance in the quantum computing field. While this industry is still in its infancy, many investors are excited about it due to the massive increase in computing power it would produce. As a result, these same investors are convinced that this could be their ticket to becoming millionaires, as a quantum computing revolution could be just around the corner.

So, does IonQ have this capability? Let's find out.

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IonQ has some stiff competition

First, you may be thinking, "There's no way a single stock could make you a millionaire from a $10,000 investment." While, in general, that is likely true, there are plenty of examples where a $10,000 investment transformed into more than $1 million in a reasonable time frame. The best example is Nvidia, which transformed $10,000 a decade ago into $2.4 million. Although Nvidia wasn't as well known back then as it is today, it wasn't a fly-by-night company that nobody had heard of.

So clearly, it's possible to transform $10,000 into $1 million in a decade, but can IonQ repeat that same feat?

IonQ received considerable attention because of the big deals it inked. The largest was its $54.5 million contract with the United States Air Force Research Lab, which was the largest quantum computing contract awarded in 2024. Additionally, that contract was expanded by $21.1 million in early January. Landing the big contract shows that IonQ's technology is as good as anyone's, allowing it to continue funding its research to produce more advanced and accurate quantum computers.

This is key, as IonQ isn't profitable and must rely on outside funding to keep going. This is one notable disadvantage IonQ has versus some of its larger competitors. Nvidia, Alphabet, IBM, and Microsoft are all competing in this field, and each of them could easily spare more than $1 billion to fund their quantum computing research, which would dwarf the amount of funds IonQ has access to.

But don't write off IonQ solely because of that. If having more money was all that it took to stay in first place in a particular industry, then there wouldn't be as many David-versus-Goliath stories in the market. IonQ has a scrappy, start-up mindset, and that could be what propels them into the leadership position in this field.

But how long will investors be waiting to see quantum computing become mainstream?

Useful quantum computing is already here, according to IonQ's CEO

The answer to that question depends on who you ask. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang singlehandedly crashed the quantum computing corner of the stock market in January when he stated that useful quantum computing was still at least 15 years away. This caused many quantum computing CEOs to fire back and state that there are already clients using quantum computing for useful tasks.

IonQ joined in on this conversation and issued a release regarding its timeline to profitability. IonQ's CEO Peter Chapman stated that its current #AQ 36 system is already providing insights today, and its #AQ64 and #AQ 256 systems will be able to deliver near-term business value. One of the biggest use cases he sees for this technology is artificial intelligence (AI), as he believes that quantum AI will be vastly superior to classical computing AI. Lastly, he believes that IonQ will have sales of around $1 billion by 2030 and be fully profitable by then.

Those are bold projections, but they are what the market needed to calm its nerves after Huang projected that quantum computing was still over a decade away. For what it's worth, Nvidia announced it would have a quantum computing day during its GTC 2025 conference, so useful quantum computing may be even closer than Huang's speculation.

But is this enough to make investors millionaires? I'm not sure. There is a lot of competition in this space, and IonQ could lose the race just as easily as it could win. Furthermore, IonQ is already valued at a market cap of $8.36 billion, so it would need to become an $836 billion company to transform $10,000 into $1 million. Having $1 billion in sales isn't going to do that, as a company like Taiwan Semiconductor, a company that produces classical computing chips (a good comparison with IonQ if it can make quantum computing systems), has a $1 trillion valuation yet generates $90 billion in revenue.

I think IonQ can be a successful investment if it wins the race (which will be a tall task in and of itself), but it has already achieved a fairly high valuation due to hype surrounding quantum computing, which will inhibit its ability to turn $10,000 into $1 million.

Should you invest $1,000 in IonQ right now?

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Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Keithen Drury has positions in Alphabet, Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, International Business Machines, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.