Who founded Oxford Ionics, and why did IonQ buy it?

In 2014 Harty and colleagues report single-qubit operations right 99.9999% of the time. In 2016 Ballance and colleagues reach 99.9% for two-qubit gates, a world record at the time.

Lasers are precise but hard to scale: thousands of ions would need thousands of finely aimed beams. Their idea: put the control into electronics on a standard silicon chip, made in ordinary chip factories, so the machine can grow like computer chips do.

They found Oxford Ionics and raise their first money as the pandemic begins. Oxford Science Enterprises backs them early.

£30 million in 2023. A contract with the National Quantum Computing Centre for a machine called Quartet, delivered to Harwell in 2025. In 2024 the company reports new accuracy records (company figures).

IonQ, a listed US trapped-ion company, agrees to buy Oxford Ionics for about $1.08 billion, mostly in shares. The deal completes in September 2025. Oxford calls it the university's highest-value quantum spin-out sale. Ballance keeps leading the Oxford team and his university research group.

It shows a common path for quantum companies: record-setting university research, a spin-out built on one bold idea, then a larger company buying it to speed up its own plans.