IonQ CEO Fires Back At Nvidia's Jensen Huang: 'We Remain The 800 Pound Guerrilla'

Nvidia Corp NVDA CEO Jensen Huang might be all-in on GPUs, but IonQ Inc's IONQ CEO Niccolo De Masi says quantum computing is the next big thing—and he's not backing down.

Quantum: The Third Leg Of Computing

"I can remember 10 years ago when Intel was busy bashing Jensen and Nvidia and saying GPUs would never matter," De Masi said in a CNBC interview. "I find that ironic that our market cap is about the same as Nvidia's 10 years ago. Now, Jensen is saying that you don't matter."

IonQ stock may have had a rocky 2025—down 42% year-to-date—but over the past six months, the stock has skyrocketed 257.9%, signaling that investors are taking the quantum race seriously.

De Masi is confident that quantum processing units (QPUs) will soon sit alongside CPUs and GPUs as the backbone of computing.

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Revenue, Partnerships, Quantum's Real-World Impact

“Quantum computing needs a lot of qubits to be truly useful. We think it takes about that many to do this useful stuff that we're already driving GAAP revenue around this year." De Masi said. "We're the only company in the space that has guided to $85 million in GAAP revenue this year at the midpoint."

IonQ isn't just talking the talk, it. is securing major partnerships with industry giants like Microsoft Corp MSFT, AstraZeneca Plc AZN and General Dynamics Corp GD.

"We're going to solve problems that no one else can solve in the world because of the beauty of quantum mechanics," De Masi said.

The 800-Pound Gorilla In Quantum Computing

With Nvidia dominating AI and Microsoft making heavy bets on quantum through Azure, IonQ is positioning itself as the independent leader in quantum computing. "We were the first. We were the best capitalized independent player in the market," De Masi stated. "I would argue that we remain the 800-pound gorilla of the category."

As tech giants continue to evolve their computing stacks, the question isn't whether quantum computing matters, it's when it will become indispensable. And IonQ is betting that moment is sooner than most expect.

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