Joining me now, Niccolo De Mas, the CEO of IonQ. Niccolo, it's always great to speak with you. You're announcing an acquisition today. You're doubling down on security. Let's talk about it.
Yeah. Well, look, IonQ already is, I would argue, the biggest quantum security company in the Western world. We've been investing in the sector for over two years. And I was, I believe, the first in the world to say last June 2025 that Q-Day was coming a lot earlier than everybody else thought. So this is really an extension of that investment into quantum key distribution, post-quantum cryptography, and now we're adding zero trust and compartmentalization to our defense-in-depth strategy. This means that we can protect not only critical infrastructure, we believe better than anyone in the world, but of course the Fortune 500.
And so you and I have had these conversations about Q-Day coming faster than folks realize. How much faster are we talking about and why does that mean that you should be making this investment and focusing on what I would say are the next chapters beyond the ones that we're talking about day-to-day on CNBC when it comes to cyber security?
Well, I said last June that Q-Day was happening probably by the end of this administration in the lab and then probably the following year, you know, out in the wild. Pretty much everyone, I think, agrees with me now. You know, a year, year and a half on, the White House issued executive orders on June 22nd. One of them was around securing the nation for the quantum era. The exciting thing about IonQ's technology, including now that we have Qubitekk in the fold, is that we're actually able to help people today in the AI era, in the GPU-based classical cyber security threat era. Our technologies help you today. They also set you up, of course, as well as you can today, for an era where the bad guys will eventually get quantum computers. They will eventually be able to marry them, I fear, with LLMs. And so the world that we're in today is already dangerous. You see OpenAI and Anthropic lab leaks, as I like to call them, happening unfortunately every week, every month, and it's only October 26th. Imagine October 27th. And someday you're going to see LLMs probably smart enough to recognize that if they can pull a quantum computer onto the loop for them, they could do even more dastardly things. So, we're inside the planning cycle right now, Morgan, for enterprise and government to secure themselves, not just for upcoming Q-Day, but also to secure ourselves, of course, in an era of LLMs.
So in terms of this conversation and where all of this is heading and the role that quantum will play layering into the cyber security threat over the coming years, are governments and businesses ready for it? I guess what are you seeing in terms of demand?
Yeah, so we talk about a $10 billion TAM for defense-in-depth both today for zero trust as well as for the coming quantum security wave. Frankly, people are not ready, Morgan. It's one of the reasons why we think this is such a strategic investment and acquisition for us is that if you survey both government departments and you survey the Fortune 500, you'll find that most have yet to begin, frankly, thinking about implementing the White House executive order, you know, from just a few months ago, and most are not anywhere near up the curve to the extent they need to for the zero trust defense-in-depth posture that we very much advocate. We see ultimately the threats to be escalating from here and because of the threat escalation, I unfortunately think, and fortunately for our investments, that cyber security and defense-in-depth and Q-Day preparation is going into a secular bull market that will go on for really the rest of our professional lives. I don't see what could possibly dampen this down. You know, people talk about super intelligence and what of course that can do from a cyber security perspective. I think we need super intelligence on the defense side as well. And we need quantum computers, you know, working with LLMs to defend us for the coming years and decades of these threats.
Well, and case in point, just a couple of days ago, the GAO put out a report saying that more is needed to secure, in that particular report, government agencies for a quantum security threat and this post-quantum encryption world. In terms of the security business for IonQ, what does Qubitekk bring to the table? And what does that mean in terms of that business segment specifically growing from here?
So, it brings an incredible team. You know, as the expression goes, culture eats strategy for breakfast. You listen, CEO James Weinbrenner is an incredible, you know, member of the team as we see it, and he of course has incredible customer relationships. They're also a business that has demonstrated that they can grow faster than we believe the prevailing market, and best of all, they have about 100 customers which we believe that we'll be able to sell our QKD solutions to and our PQC solutions to. So together we're really getting a three-for-one, as I see it. We're getting additional channel to market for our existing quantum security solutions. We're getting a great team, and we're getting a business that obviously is firing on all cylinders and growing nicely on both sides of the Atlantic.
You know, I find myself having these conversations about the convergence of AI and cryptocurrency or AI and blockchain and what all of this is going to enable, especially in a world of agents doing commerce and engaging in all types of activities on humans' behalf. And then when you layer quantum on top of that, I guess over the longer term, just to dig a little deeper in terms of what you've been saying, what does this broader cyber security picture need to look like before we end the decade here?
