BOTHELL, Wash. — IonQ’s quantum computer factory is still ramping up to full operation, but the company is already expanding its footprint by tens of thousands of square feet.
A year ago, when IonQ revealed its plans to create a new kind of research and manufacturing facility in the Seattle area, the idea was to use roughly 65,000 square feet of space on two floors of a three-story building in Bothell that once housed offices for AT&T Wireless.
“We’re happy to announce today we’ve taken the third floor, so we have the entire building now,” IonQ CEO Peter Chapman said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony. “So, a 50% increase in our footprint in one year. … Now we’re up to about 100,000 square feet in the building.”
IonQ considers its Bothell facility to be the first dedicated quantum computer manufacturing facility in the United States. The building will house the company’s research and development team — and also serve as IonQ’s second quantum data center, following in the footsteps of its Maryland HQ.
Chapman said it cost about $20 million to upgrade the building’s infrastructure for IonQ’s purposes.
“We now have, in the Seattle area, about 80 people at IonQ,” he said. “A year ago, we had something less than that — a handful. So, we’re growing quickly in the Seattle area. And I expect that in this next year, we will invest probably somewhere close to $80 million in the Seattle area, which will go to our promise of investing a billion dollars over the next 10 years.”
