M&A News: IONQ Powers Higher After Sealing $1B Oxford Ionics Deal

Shares in quantum computing firm IonQ (IONQ) strengthened today as it snapped up British peer Oxford Ionics for $1.08 billion.

Groundbreaking Tech

IonQ, whose shares climbed over 3%, said the deal brings together its quantum compute, application and networking stack with Oxford Ionics’ groundbreaking ion-trap technology manufactured on standard semiconductor chips. The combined technologies are expected to deliver innovative, reliable quantum computers that increase in power, scale, and problem-solving capabilities.

Indeed, IonQ hopes it will accelerate innovation in drug discovery, materials science, financial modeling, logistics, chemistry, aerospace, cybersecurity and defense.

The acquisition of Oxford Ionics follows IonQ’s recent purchase of Lightsynq and pending acquisition of Capella.

Quantum computers are faster and more efficient than their classical counterparts, performing more niche and advanced calculations, partly due to their ability to predict the results of multiple paths simultaneously and store vast amounts of data.

The technology is drawing hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from technology giants such as Microsoft (MSFT), and Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL).

The quantum computing market is projected to create up to $850 billion of global economic value by 2040 according to Boston Consulting Group.

Drug Results

Investors also got excited by results of a collaborative research program between IonQ, AstraZeneca (AZN) Amazon (AMZN) Web Services (AWS), and Nvidia (NVDA) to develop and demonstrate a quantum-accelerated computational chemistry workflow to develop drugs.

IonQ said this demonstration focused on a critical step in a Suzuki-Miyaura reaction – a class of chemical transformations used for the synthesis of small molecule drugs. By integrating IonQ’s Forte quantum processing unit (QPU) with the Nvidia CUDA-Q platform through Amazon Braket and AWS ParallelCluster services, the team achieved an over 20 times improvement in runtime.

That means in simple terms completing the reaction in days not months.

Is IONQ a Good Stock to Buy Now?

On TipRanks, IONQ has a Strong Buy consensus based on 4 Buy and 1 Hold rating. Its highest price target is $50. IONQ stock’s consensus price target is $40 implying a 0.15% downside.

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