‘The era of quantum supremacy is just around the corner,’ IonQ CEO says

IonQ CEO Niccolo de Masi told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Thursday that major advances in quantum computing are fast-approaching.

“The era of what’s called quantum supremacy is just around the corner,” De Masi said. “It’s coming in quarters and very low single-digit years, and that’s getting people, obviously, pretty excited about the fact that we’ll be able to do things to help every area of applied science.”

IonQ is one of the major players in the quantum computing space, along with Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum and Quantum Computing. The company is developing both quantum computers and quantum networking equipment, De Masi said.

Wall Street’s interest in quantum computing is growing as tech titans like Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and IBM, as well as the U.S. government, spend millions to the develop quantum computers. The technology aims to solve problems that are too complex for classical computers using quantum mechanics. Investors were particularly excited by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s bullish comments on quantum computing last month. Huang said quantum computing is “reaching an inflection point” and indicated that practical uses cases are coming faster than he previously expected.

De Masi described the way quantum computing could lead to breakthroughs in the healthcare and pharmaceutical fields. He touted his company’s partnership with Nvidia, AWS and AstraZeneca for a research project related to drug development. Looking at molecules through a quantum lens will lead to breakthroughs in drug discovery, he suggested.

IonQ is part of the global race to advance quantum computing, De Masi said. He said his company is a major player in cracking RSA, a widely-used encryption algorithm.

“We are racing China, we believe, almost single handedly, for the Western world, if you will, to be the RSA cracker,” De Masi said. “And, of course, when that happens, everybody’s going to need our quantum networking equipment to make sure that the world as we know it, and civilization as we know it, goes on.”

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Disclaimer The CNBC Investing Club Charitable Trust owns shares of Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Nvidia.