NEW YORK, December 29, 2025, 19:03 ET — After-hours
- IonQ shares were down 1.6% in after-hours trading after the company detailed a South Korea quantum system delivery.
- The company said its 100‑qubit Tempo system will be integrated with KISTI’s flagship supercomputing cluster.
- Traders are watching contract timing and the next earnings update for clues on the pace of commercialization.
IonQ, Inc. shares fell 1.6% to $45.25 in after-hours trading on Monday after the quantum computing company said it had finalized an agreement to deliver a 100‑qubit system to South Korea’s Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI). 1
The announcement matters because investors have pushed quantum stocks around on thin evidence of near-term revenue. On-premises system deliveries tied to national research programs can offer clearer milestones than cloud-only access.
IonQ said it will deliver a 100‑qubit “Tempo 100” quantum system and integrate it into KISTI‑6 (“HANGANG”), which it described as the country’s largest high-performance computing cluster. High-performance computing, or HPC, is a supercomputing setup used for large-scale research workloads.
The company said the project will create South Korea’s first onsite “hybrid quantum-classical” integration, meaning quantum hardware is connected to conventional computing resources so users can run workflows that mix both. IonQ said access will be provided via a secure private cloud for researchers, universities and enterprises, but it did not disclose financial terms.
“This is a defining moment for both IonQ and South Korea,” Chairman and CEO Niccolo de Masi said in the statement.
IonQ said KISTI will lead development and operation of the quantum computing service and research platform, and that KISTI identified IonQ as the primary quantum technology provider alongside Megazone Cloud. KISTI’s president, Dr. Sik Lee, said the platform is intended to support applications ranging from healthcare and finance to materials science.
Quantum computing stocks have been volatile into year-end, with a late-December surge followed by a multi-day pullback as investors took profits and holiday trading thinned, Investors Business Daily reported. The publication said IonQ was up about 10% year-to-date, compared with sharper gains for some peers, and noted that many pure-play names were well below their 52-week highs. 2
Shares of rival quantum firms were mixed in late trading, with D-Wave Quantum up about 3.4%, while Rigetti Computing and Quantum Computing Inc were modestly lower.
IonQ builds trapped-ion quantum computers and sells access to its systems through major cloud platforms, while also pursuing direct system deployments and networking projects.
In its most recent quarterly update, IonQ said third-quarter revenue rose 222% year-on-year to $39.9 million and it raised its full-year 2025 revenue outlook to $106 million to $110 million. 3
Investors will be looking for more detail on delivery timing, revenue recognition and whether the KISTI deployment translates into incremental bookings. In quantum computing, “qubit count” is a headline metric, but buyers also scrutinize error rates, uptime and how reliably systems can be used for real workloads.
The next scheduled catalyst is IonQ’s fourth-quarter results, with market calendars estimating a late-February report date, though IonQ has not confirmed its next earnings publication date, MarketBeat’s earnings page shows. 4
