IonQ is aiming to become the industry leader in quantum computing, envisioning an ascent similar to that of the biggest names in the semiconductor industry -- and it doesn't plan on doing quietly.

IonQ up 36% on the news. Shares of quantum computing companies also rocketed higher with Rigetti up 26%; QUBT up 15%.

Meanwhile, D-Wave Quantum stock jumped 24%. The company on Tuesday had unveiled its newest quantum computer. CEO Alan Baratz said D-Wave’s machine, known as Advantage2, “marks a significant milestone not just for D-Wave, but for the quantum computing industry as a whole.”

"We're in the business of quantum just like Nvidia and Broadcom are in the business of classical GPUs," CEO Niccolo de Masi said in an interview with Barron's. "I believe IonQ will be the Nvidia player. There will be other people that copy us and follow us; they have always copied and followed us."

The company is outspoken about its mission to "build the world's best quantum computers to solve the world's most complex problems." It offers a so-called full stack of software, hardware, and applications, including quantum-computing power that's accessible over the cloud.

"People forget that we are a fully fledged company," de Masi continued. "We have a manufacturing, a customer service team. We have a marketing team, a sales team, engineering team; of course, physicists. We also have an applications team."

The chief executive noted that IonQ was the largest publicly traded quantum-computing company by market capitalization, at around $8.75 billion. IonQ's next-largest peer, D-Wave Quantum, has a market cap of $4.84 billion.

IonQ was one of the first quantum pure plays to go public. However, its founding was preceded by nearly three decades of academic research. The start-up was the brainchild of Duke professors Christopher Monroe and Jungsang Kim, who aimed to take trapped-ion quantum computing from a laboratory setting to the market.

IonQ began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2021. De Masi headed the special purpose acquisition company that took IonQ public and has been on the board since then.

Since its inception, the College Park, Md.-based company has worked to build a presence outside the U.S. Part of this strategy means snapping up start-ups and private companies around the globe. De Masi pointed to IonQ's acquisition of a controlling stake in ID Quantique, a Swiss quantum-cryptography company, in addition to a spate of other deals.

Other recent purchases include Capella, a satellite company, and Lightsync, a Boston-based start-up building technology to link quantum computers. And the deals just keep coming. On Tuesday, the company unveiled a partnership with Swedish transport company Einride "to explore how quantum computing can drive the next generation of fleet optimization and logistics."

"We feel good about our competitive positioning because, at the end of the day, we are trying to drive ecosystem," de Masi explained.

While the stock has surged 290% over the past 12 months, it remains down 20% this year. Shares slid in March when the company was the subject of a short report from Kerrisdale Capital, with the firm alleging IonQ embellished "relatively immaterial past achievements" and provided "limited, error-prone systems."

The same firm said it was short shares of D-Wave a month later. Shares of quantum pure plays already had been beaten down in the wake of Nvidia GTC's inaugural Quantum Day, where investors hoping for clarity on timelines were left disappointed, resulting in a broad selloff.

When asked to respond to the allegations, de Masi scoffed. "There's a short report every few years," he said. "They've all been baseless and nonsense and we haven't even bothered trying to defend ourselves because they're all wrong."

However, IonQ's founders did respond to a short report from a different firm in 2022. In a press release, Monroe and Kim hit back at what they called "breathless accusations of fraud and malfeasance."

It seems the company won't acknowledge detractors under de Masi's leadership. "They go away," de Masi said of the short sellers. "The stock keeps going up and we keep putting out announcements and delivering progress."

A persistent sticking point is profitability. As IonQ and peers have yet to turn a profit, many view quantum as a speculative bet, and stocks trade largely on headlines and sentiment.

De Masi's successor, former CEO Peter Chapman, once professed that the company would be profitable by 2030 with sales approaching $1 billion. While de Masi refused to echo these lofty targets, he emphasized that company had logged $100 million in cumulative bookings in 2o23.

IonQ reported revenue of $7.6 million in its most recent first quarter, flat from the previous year and down 35% sequentially. However, the figure exceeded the $7.5 million analysts had expected.

The company also reported a quarterly loss of $32.3 million, narrower than its $39.6 million loss a year earlier. For the full year, management has forecast organic revenue between $75 million and $95 million.

Ultimately, IonQ's chief executive sees the company following a similar trajectory to that of start-ups before it. He indicated that he would be open to its acquisition by a larger tech company, particularly one specializing in artificial intelligence.

"I think someone will pay hundreds of billions of dollars to buy IonQ because it's the right thing for their cloud. It's the right thing to do for them to defend their classical AI or machine learning business," de Masi said. "They're going to need our advantage because if they don't have us, their competitors will have them on their knees."