Why IonQ Stock Is Soaring Today

Shares of IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) are climbing on Tuesday. The quantum computing pioneer's stock gained 5.1% as of 3:35 p.m. ET, and was up as much as 11.5% earlier in the day. The rise comes as the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) and Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) showed modest movement.

The quantum computing company announced that its newest quantum computer was available through the cloud.

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Quantum on the cloud

IonQ revealed that its recently commissioned quantum computer, IonQ Forte Enterprise, can be accessed both through Amazon Web Services' managed quantum computing service and IonQ's own Quantum Cloud platform.

This is the third IonQ system to meet Amazon's standards for commercial availability, joining IonQ Aria and the original IonQ Forte. This will be the most powerful and will offer "new possibilities for enterprise customers to develop applications that make meaningful business impact and address complex challenges," according to president and CEO Niccolo de Masi.

"Today we are celebrating global accessibility of IonQ Forte Enterprise -- our flagship quantum computer," said de Masi. "IonQ's goal is to get our quantum technologies into the hands of developers so they can build and develop new commercial applications to solve some of today's most complex problems."

There is a long way to go

IonQ and other quantum computing companies are developing what could be a truly revolutionary technology, but it is still early days. The technology still needs to prove useful commercially at scale. I would avoid IonQ for now unless you have a particularly high risk tolerance and are comfortable not only with the technology taking many years to come into its own, but the potential that it fails to do so entirely.

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John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Johnny Rice has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.