One of the co-founders of College Park quantum startup IonQ Inc. (NYSE: IONQ) is leaving the company and returning to academia full time.
Chris Monroe, who co-founded IonQ with Jungsang Kim in 2015 and serves as chief science officer, is taking a position at Duke University as presidential professor of physics and electrical computer engineering. While working at IonQ, Monroe also held faculty roles at Duke as well as the University of Maryland.
Under Monroe's support and leadership, IonQ was "granted exclusive ion trap intellectual property licenses from the University of Maryland and Duke University — two distinguished research universities pushing the frontiers of quantum computing,” IonQ President and CEO Peter Chapman said in a statement. “Chris has also helped guide the company to build scalable quantum computers that will drive commercial advantage. We are grateful to Chris for his many contributions and wish him the best.”
IonQ recently landed its largest contract to date in a $25 million deal to build two barium-based ion quantum computers for the Air Force Research Lab. The deal showed IonQ's continued growth in the government space, as only the year before it inked a $13.4 million deal with the Air Force Research Lab to allow the Air Force use of IonQ's trapped ion systems.
This year saw the company release quantum software, with the launch of its Aria system for Amazon Web Services' quantum computing platform, and acquire Toronto software firm Entangled Networks Ltd. in January.
“We have brought forward several first-in-class quantum technologies, culminating in a clear roadmap that is poised to drive commercial advantage in the future,” Monroe said in a statement. “I'm proud of what we've accomplished so far and want to thank everyone at IonQ."
