IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) said on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026, that it has unveiled Superion 256, its sixth-generation trapped-ion quantum computing platform. The system contains 256 qubits and is designed to scale from 256 qubits to millions of qubits, while the company said it is also developing a 10,000-qubit generation in parallel.
IonQ said the platform achieved 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity in October 2025 using Electronic Qubit Control technology, which controls trapped-ion qubits with electronics integrated directly on the chip rather than relying on laser systems. The company said the shift from laser-based to semiconductor-based control is expected to reduce cost-per-qubit by more than 300 times across its roadmap.
The announcement followed six tapeouts completed in the first half of 2026. IonQ said its design cycle was compressed from nine months to two months through work with SkyWater, its subsidiary and quantum foundry, and that 12 times more wafer lots were delivered over a six-month period compared with a previous foundry. The company said it fabricated its first fully integrated quantum processing units at SkyWater and has trapped ions in prototype systems being built at multiple U.S. facilities.
Superion 256 occupies a standard server-rack footprint and draws less power than a rack of GPUs, IonQ said. The company said it is accepting orders for the system, with the first system pre-sold in the first quarter of 2026 and customer deliveries scheduled for 2027.
IonQ has deployed five generations of quantum computers to customers since 2019. Chairman and CEO Niccolo de Masi said the platform brings together Oxford Ionics and SkyWater, which the company described as strategic acquisitions, with Oxford Ionics enabling control of natural trapped-ion qubits using standard electronics and SkyWater supporting semiconductor-cost manufacturing and scale.
