IONQ Inc (IONQ) 2022 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Greetings, and welcome to IonQ's Inc. Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions). I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Jordan Shapiro. Thank you. You may begin.

大家好，歡迎參加 IonQ 公司 2022 年第三季業績電話會議。 （操作員指示）。現在，我想將會議交給主持人 Jordan Shapiro。謝謝。您可以開始了。

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to IonQ's Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. My name is Jordan Shapiro, and I am the Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis and Head of Investor Relations here at IonQ. I am pleased to be joined on today's call by Peter Chapman, IonQ's President and Chief Executive Officer; Thomas Kramer, our Chief Financial Officer; Dr. Chris Monroe, our Co-Founder and Chief Scientist; and Dr. Jungsang Kim, our Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer. By now, everyone should have access to the company's third quarter 2022 earnings press release issued this afternoon, which is available on the Investor Relations section of our website at investors.ionq.com.

大家下午好，歡迎參加 IonQ 2022 年第三季財報電話會議。我叫喬丹‧夏皮羅 (Jordan Shapiro)，是 IonQ 財務規劃與分析副總裁兼投資人關係主管。我很高興今天能與 IonQ 總裁兼首席執行官彼得·查普曼 (Peter Chapman)、首席財務官托馬斯·克萊默 (Thomas Kramer)、聯合創始人兼首席科學家克里斯·門羅 (Chris Monroe) 博士以及聯合創始人兼首席技術官金正尚 (Jungsang Kim) 博士一起參加電話會議。現在，大家應該已經可以閱讀公司今天下午發布的 2022 年第三季財報新聞稿了，該新聞稿可在我們網站 investors.ionq.com 的投資者關係板塊查閱。

Please note that on today's call, management will refer to adjusted EBITDA, which is a non-GAAP financial measure. While the company believes this non-GAAP financial measure provides useful information for investors, the presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. You are directed to our press release for a reconciliation of such measures to GAAP. During the call, we will discuss our business outlook and make forward-looking statements. These comments are based on our predictions and expectations as of today. Actual events or results could differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those mentioned in our most recent filings with the SEC.

請注意，在今天的電話會議上，管理階層將參考調整後的EBITDA，這是一個非公認會計準則（GAAP）財務指標。雖然公司認為該非公認會計準則（non-GAAP）財務指標為投資者提供了有用的信息，但這些信息的呈現並非旨在單獨考慮或替代根據公認會計準則（GAAP）呈現的財務信息。您可以參閱我們的新聞稿，以了解這些指標與公認會計準則（GAAP）的對照表。在電話會議期間，我們將討論我們的業務前景並做出前瞻性陳述。這些評論是基於我們今天的預測和預期。由於一系列風險和不確定因素，包括我們最近向美國證券交易委員會（SEC）提交的文件中提到的風險和不確定因素，實際事件或結果可能與此有重大差異。

Now I will turn it over to Peter Chapman, President and CEO of IonQ. Peter?

現在我將把話題交給 IonQ 總裁兼執行長 Peter Chapman。 Peter？

Thanks, Jordan. This has been a fantastic quarter, and I'm excited to dive into the details with you. But to start, I'd like to contextualize where IonQ stands today after a year of being public. To date, our system performance has consistently outpaced every other quantum computer available to the public. As you'll hear today, we're continuing to hit our technical milestones, and we believe that we are building the winning approach for quantum computing. We are translating our technology into meaningful business impact for our customers and are currently on track to hit all of our commercial milestones for 2022. We also have a strong balance sheet, which we view as a competitive advantage in the quantum computing industry, especially in this market. While we are disciplined in managing our costs, having this cash allows IonQ to accelerate while others may have to pull back. The market is noticing customers are noticing, governments are noticing and talent is noticing. The results are increasingly clear. IonQ is the place to be for quantum computing. We believe we have a clear plan to continuing leading the quantum industry and to make quantum computing a ubiquitous technology. Our focus is to win the quantum space race by reducing the time to market for quantum computers that rival the best supercomputers.

謝謝，喬丹。這是一個非常棒的季度，我很高興能與您深入探討細節。首先，我想先介紹一下 IonQ 上市一年後的現況。到目前為止，我們的系統效能一直領先於所有其他已上市的量子電腦。正如您今天將要聽到的，我們正在不斷實現技術里程碑，並且我們相信我們正在建立量子運算的致勝之道。我們正在將我們的技術轉化為對客戶有意義的業務影響，目前正朝著實現 2022 年所有商業里程碑的目標穩步前進。我們也擁有強勁的資產負債表，我們認為這是我們在量子運算產業，尤其是在這個市場的競爭優勢。雖然我們在成本管理方面非常嚴格，但擁有這筆現金使 IonQ 能夠加速發展，而其他公司可能不得不退縮。市場、客戶、政府和人才都在關注著這一點。結果越來越清晰。 IonQ 是量子計算的理想之地。我們相信，我們有一個清晰的計劃，將繼續引領量子產業，並使量子運算成為一項無所不在的技術。我們的重點是透過縮短與最優秀的超級電腦相媲美的量子電腦的上市時間來贏得量子太空競賽。

With that context, let's jump into the Q3 results. This quarter was another record quarter on so many levels. First, I'll start with a financial recap. We generated a strong $16.4 million of new bookings. That brings IonQ to $21.2 million of bookings as of the end of the third quarter and puts us firmly on track to achieve our annual bookings number of between $23 million and $27 million. As a result, we expect 50% year-over-year growth in annual bookings based on us hitting the midpoint of $25 million. We recognized $2.8 million in revenue for the quarter, which we believe supports our full-year 2022 revenue range of $10.2 million to $10.7 million. This compares to $223,000 in the prior year period. More importantly, we believe our bookings will set us up for a very strong continued year-over-year revenue growth in 2023. I will turn the microphone over to Thomas in a few minutes to discuss the full financial story. But before doing so, we have lots to discuss on our technical progress for the quarter. I would refer you to our public road map published 2 years ago in December 2020, which covers algorithmic qubits, or AQ, the core technical benchmark for our systems.

有了這些背景訊息，讓我們來看看第三季的業績。本季在許多方面都創下了新高。首先，我先來回顧一下財務狀況。我們新增了1640萬美元的訂單，這讓我們在第三季末的訂單量達到了2120萬美元，並有望實現2300萬美元至2700萬美元的年度訂單量目標。因此，我們預計年度訂單量將年增50%，前提是達到2,500萬美元的中點。本季我們實現了280萬美元的收入，我們相信這可以支撐我們2022年全年1020萬美元至1070萬美元的收入目標。而去年同期的收入為22.3萬美元。更重要的是，我們相信，這些訂單量將為我們在2023年繼續保持強勁的年成長奠定基礎。幾分鐘後，我將把麥克風交給湯瑪斯，他將討論完整的財務狀況。但在此之前，我們有很多關於本季技術進展的內容要討論。我建議您參考我們兩年前（2020 年 12 月）發布的公開路線圖，其中涵蓋了演算法量子位元（AQ），這是我們系統的核心技術基準。

The road map shows us progressing from an AQ of 6 it had in 2020, with a goal of 25 AQ this year, growing to 64 AQ in 2025. I am very happy to announce we have achieved our goal for this year of 25 algorithmic qubits on our RIA class machine. This announcement continues our success in hitting our public road map. 29, 35 and 64 AQ are next, a huge shout-out to the technical team at IonQ who not only hit the milestone, but did so ahead of schedule. As you know, every time you add an algorithmic qubit, you double the computational power, which is a useful computational space for running algorithms.

路線圖顯示，我們的進展從2020年的6個AQ（演算法量子位元）開始，今年的目標是25個AQ，到2025年將成長到64個AQ。我很高興地宣布，我們已實現今年在RIA級機器上實現25個演算法量子位元的目標。這項聲明延續了我們成功實現公開路線圖的目標。接下來是29、35和64個AQ，我們要向IonQ的技術團隊致以崇高的敬意，他們不僅達到了這個里程碑，而且提前完成了。眾所周知，每增加一個演算法量子比特，運算能力就會翻倍，這對於運行演算法來說是一個寶貴的運算空間。

We started the year with an AQ of 6 available on the cloud. The latest achievement is an increase in computational power of more than 500,000 times in a single year. We continue to believe that around 40 AQ early quantum machine learning applications will demonstrate clear Quantum advantage over classical hardware. Based on our road map, we believe this critical milestone is a mere 2 to 3 years from now, which is just around the corner. It takes time to develop Quantum applications. IonQ is providing leading companies the hardware and applications expertise to invest in Quantum now, less they'd be left behind in the near future. Occasionally, people are confused when they hear other quantum technologies posting much higher physical cubic counts than IonQ’s.

今年伊始，我們在雲端提供的 AQ 為 6。最新的成果是，運算能力在一年內提升了 50 多萬倍。我們始終堅信，約 40 個 AQ 早期量子機器學習應用將展現出量子技術相對於傳統硬體的明顯優勢。根據我們的路線圖，我們認為這個關鍵里程碑距離現在只剩 2 到 3 年，指日可待。開發量子應用需要時間。 IonQ 正在為領先的公司提供硬體和應用專業知識，幫助他們現在就投資量子技術，否則在不久的將來就會落後。有時，當人們聽到其他量子技術的物理立方計數比 IonQ 高得多時，他們會感到困惑。

We believe the algorithmic qubit benchmark resolves that leveling the playing field to show how useful a quantum computer is for real customers. So for the avoidance of doubt, let me be clear. IonQ systems are exceeding every other universal gate at Quantum computer we know of in terms of algorithmic qubits. We've covered our exciting news on the systems level, but now I'd like to switch focus down to the chip level. As those who follow us will know, IonQ also develops a line of custom chips. Last year, we unveiled our first custom-made chip the Evaporated Glass Trap or EGT for short. The EGT utilizes a single layer to route wires across the chip and ushered in an unprecedented level of performance.

我們相信，演算法量子位元基準測試能夠解決這個問題，創造公平的競爭環境，並展示量子電腦對實際客戶的實用性。為了避免疑問，請讓我明確一點。就演算法量子位元而言，IonQ 系統超越了我們所知的所有其他量子電腦通用閘。我們已經在系統層面報導了令人興奮的消息，但現在我想將焦點轉移到晶片層面。關注我們的人都知道，IonQ 也開發了一系列客製化晶片。去年，我們推出了首款客製化晶片－蒸發玻璃阱（Evaporated Glass Trap，簡稱 EGT）。 EGT 採用單層佈線技術，將晶片的性能提升到了前所未有的水平。

Today, I'm happy to announce our next-generation custom chip called the Multilayer Glass Trap or MGT. We believe this technology should enable higher cubic count per chip going beyond the capabilities of our EGT to fit hundreds of cubics in a multi-core arrangement. Additionally, we have been developing photonic integrated circuits or PIC for short, a technology that offers a robust and compact way to deliver laser light to trapped ion qubits. This quarter, we have received our first batch of PIK devices. We plan to integrate those into our future ion traps with the goal of increasing the integration levels of our ion trap chip. We believe this will help us scale up the number of qubits on a single chip while reducing system size, complexity and per cubic cost.

今天，我很高興地宣布我們推出下一代客製化晶片——多層玻璃阱（MGT）。我們相信，這項技術能夠實現更高的單晶片立方數，超越我們EGT在多核心配置中容納數百個立方的功能。此外，我們一直在開發光子積體電路（PIC），這項技術能夠以穩健且緊湊的方式將雷射傳輸到離子阱量子位元。本季度，我們已收到首批PIK裝置。我們計劃將這些裝置整合到我們未來的離子阱中，以提高離子阱晶片的整合度。我們相信，這將有助於我們擴大單晶片上的量子位元數量，同時降低系統尺寸、複雜性和單位立方成本。

We expect that the MGT chip will allow us to fit a greater number of physical qubits into a single quantum processing unit. We believe the PICs will allow us to deliver light in a much more compact and robust way as we scale to multiple QPUs to deliver an even more powerful quantum computer. We look forward to providing future updates as we continue our scaling efforts for IonQ systems architecture. Back on the business side, I will end with some of our commercial milestones, another area where we had an incredible quarter. In September, we announced our $13.4 million contract with the U.S. Air Force Research Lab, or AFRL, this multi-part contract will supply ARL with cloud access to compute on our cutting-edge trapped ion systems and with hardware components to further their research in quantum networking.

我們預計 MGT 晶片將使我們能夠在單一量子處理單元 (QPU) 中容納更多實體量子位元。我們相信，隨著我們擴展到多個 QPU，從而打造更強大的量子計算機，PIC 將使我們能夠以更緊湊、更穩健的方式傳輸光。我們期待在未來繼續擴展 IonQ 系統架構的過程中提供最新進展。回到業務方面，我將以我們的一些商業里程碑作為結束，這也是我們本季表現出色的另一個領域。 9 月，我們宣布與美國空軍研究實驗室 (AFRL) 簽訂了價值 1340 萬美元的合約。這份多部分合約將為 ARL 提供雲端訪問，以在我們尖端的離子阱系統上進行計算，並提供硬體組件，以進一步推進他們在量子網路方面的研究。

I want to clarify that this sale does not constitute a full system sale, such as we had discussed on our prior earnings calls. We are actively pursuing full system sales with a number of interested parties, and we continue to believe that a sale of that nature could occur in the next 12 to 18 months. IonQ also kicked off a second exciting new project with the U.S. government in Q3. This one with the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Our new agreement focuses on researching benchmark circuits to be used for the discovery of new quantum chemistry applications. IonQ will provide cloud access as well as applications development research support to ORNL. We aim to break new ground in a variety of interesting new computational chemistry and physics applications.

我想澄清的是，此次出售並非我們之前在財報電話會議上討論過的全系統出售。我們正在積極與多家有意向的各方洽談全系統出售事宜，並且我們始終相信，此類出售可能在未來12到18個月內實現。 IonQ也在第三季與美國政府啟動了第二個令人興奮的新項目，該項目與美國能源部橡樹嶺國家實驗室合作。我們的新協議重點是研究用於探索新型量子化學應用的基準電路。 IonQ將為橡樹嶺國家實驗室提供雲端存取以及應用程式開發研究支援。我們的目標是在各種引人入勝的新型計算化學和物理應用領域中開闢新天地。

Our commercial success this quarter was not limited to working with the government. It is my pleasure to announce that IonQ is now a trusted quantum compute provider to Dell Technologies. IonQ and Dell have formed this new partnership to offer a world-class hybrid computing solution, combining the best of quantum computing, IonQ's ARIA system with the best of classical computing, Dell's PowerEdge servers. With our combined forces, customers will now have the ability to seamlessly transition workloads between classical and quantum hardware.

我們本季的商業成功不僅限於與政府的合作。我很高興地宣布，IonQ 現已成為戴爾科技值得信賴的量子運算提供者。 IonQ 和戴爾建立這一新的合作夥伴關係，旨在提供世界一流的混合計算解決方案，將量子計算的精髓——IonQ 的 ARIA 系統與傳統計算的精髓——戴爾的 PowerEdge 伺服器相結合。憑藉我們的強大聯手，客戶現在將能夠在傳統硬體和量子硬體之間無縫轉換工作負載。

Beyond these new contracts, we've also signed several new contracts and renewed our partnerships with several existing customers. As IonQ's commercial momentum picks up steam, we're also focused on making our systems increasingly accessible and usable delivering a full-stack approach to quantum computing. This past quarter, we added IonQ's [Area] to Microsoft Azure Quantum cloud, meaning that anyone with an Azure account can now access IonQ's most powerful quantum computer. [IRAs] new capacity of 25 algorithmic qubits will be available to customers in the near future. This was a phenomenal third quarter for IonQ on all counts. We hit our AQ goal, innovated on our Quantum chips and put ourselves within striking range of our financial targets. We could not be more thrilled about the road ahead. We are proud of the IonQ team for the incredible hard work day in and day out, and we remain committed to building the world's most powerful quantum computers to solve the world's most complex problems.

除了這些新合約外，我們還簽署了幾份新合同，並與多家現有客戶續簽了合作夥伴關係。隨著 IonQ 商業化勢頭的不斷增強，我們也致力於提升系統的可訪問性和可用性，提供全端式量子運算方法。上個季度，我們將 IonQ 的 [Area] 添加到了 Microsoft Azure Quantum 雲端中，這意味著任何擁有 Azure 帳戶的人現在都可以存取 IonQ 最強大的量子電腦。 [IRA] 新增的 25 個演算法量子位元容量將在不久的將來向客戶推出。對 IonQ 來說，這是一個各方面都非凡的第三季。我們實現了 AQ 目標，在量子晶片上進行了創新，並且距離財務目標僅一步之遙。我們對未來充滿期待。我們為 IonQ 團隊日復一日的辛勤工作感到自豪，我們將繼續致力於打造世界上最強大的量子計算機，以解決世界上最複雜的問題。

I'd now like to turn this call over to Thomas for a run-through of our financials as well as updates on our corporate initiatives. Thomas?

現在我想把這個電話轉給托馬斯，讓他介紹一下我們的財務狀況以及公司計劃的最新情況。托馬斯？

Thank you, Peter. Now let's walk through this quarter's financial results in more detail. As Peter mentioned, we had an excellent quarter, recognizing $2.8 million in revenue, which is above the midpoint of the outlook we previously provided. We also exited the quarter with $21.2 million in bookings year-to-date, which puts us on track to hit our previously stated expectation of between $23 million to $27 million for the full year. Given that we are still at the beginning of our commercialization phase, I want to reiterate my comments from our last earnings call that we expect bookings to continue to be lumpy for quite some time.

謝謝Peter。現在讓我們更詳細地回顧一下本季的財務表現。正如Peter所提到的，我們本季表現非常出色，實現了280萬美元的收入，高於我們先前預期的中位數。截至本季度，我們的年初至今預訂量已達2,120萬美元，這使我們能夠實現先前設定的全年2,300萬至2,700萬美元的預期。鑑於我們仍處於商業化階段的起步階段，我想重申我在上次財報電話會議上的發言，我們預計預訂量在相當長的一段時間內仍將保持波動。

Moving down to the income statement. For Q3 2022, our total operating costs and expenses for the third quarter were $27.7 million, up 156% from $10.8 million in the prior year period, but well within our plan for the year. To break this down further. Our research and development costs for the third quarter were $13.3 million, up 115% from $6.2 million in the prior year period. Recall that we are investing heavily in R&D and given anticipated demand are building more systems than previously projected this year.

再來看損益表。 2022年第三季度，我們的總營運成本和費用為2,770萬美元，較去年同期的1,080萬美元成長156%，但仍遠低於我們全年的計畫。進一步細分，我們第三季的研發成本為1,330萬美元，較去年同期的620萬美元成長115%。值得一提的是，我們在研發方面投入了大量資金，考慮到預期需求，我們今年正在建造的系統數量將超過先前的預期。

Our sales and marketing costs in the third quarter were $2 million, up 54% from $1.3 million in the prior year period. This increase was due to us growing our go-to-market function as we continue our investment into our commercial efforts. Our general and administrative costs in the third quarter were $10.1 million, up 304% from $2.5 million in the prior year period. This increase is largely attributable to a growth in stock-based compensation expense, which was $4.5 million for the third quarter compared to $837,000 in the prior year period.

第三季度，我們的銷售和行銷成本為 200 萬美元，較去年同期的 130 萬美元成長 54%。這一成長是由於我們繼續增加對商業活動的投入，並擴大了市場推廣功能。第三季度，我們的一般及行政管理成本為 1,010 萬美元，較去年同期的 250 萬美元成長 304%。這一成長主要歸因於股票薪酬費用的成長，第三季股票薪酬費用為 450 萬美元，而去年同期為 83.7 萬美元。

All of this resulted in a net loss of $24 million in the third quarter compared to a net loss of $14.8 million in the prior year period. It is important to note that these results include a noncash loss of $1.2 million for the third quarter related to the fair value of our warrant liabilities. We saw an adjusted EBITDA loss for the third quarter of $13.4 million compared to a $7.9 million loss in the prior year period. Note that we projected an adjusted EBITDA loss for the year of $55 million and have announced a loss of $35.3 million year-to-date. So we expect to remain well within our plan for the year.

所有這些因素導致第三季淨虧損2,400萬美元，而去年同期淨虧損為1,480萬美元。值得注意的是，這些業績包含與認股權證負債公允價值相關的120萬美元非現金損失。第三季調整後EBITDA虧損為1,340萬美元，去年同期虧損為790萬美元。需要注意的是，我們預計全年調整後EBITDA虧損為5,500萬美元，而年初至今已公佈的虧損為3,530萬美元。因此，我們預計全年業績將遠低於計劃。

Turning now to our balance sheet. Cash, cash equivalents and investments as of September 30th, 2022, were $555.8 million. We continue to believe this gives us sufficient cash reserves to get to profitability without needing to raise additional funds given our current road map. Now turning to our full-year 2022 outlook. We are pleased to be maintaining both our revenue and bookings outlook for the full year 2022. As a reminder, we anticipate revenue of between $10.2 million and $10.7 million, and we expect bookings of between $23 million and $27 million. For context, year-to-date, we have booked $21.2 million. Overall, we are incredibly excited about our commercial and financial progress year-to-date as well as the state of the quantum computing industry as a whole. The market for quantum is currently growing rapidly despite global market headwinds that much of the order technology industry is currently experiencing. In these difficult market conditions, many companies have retreated from their earlier financial projections.

現在來看我們的資產負債表。截至2022年9月30日，現金、現金等價物及投資總額為5.558億美元。我們仍然相信，鑑於我們目前的路線圖，這足以讓我們在無需額外融資的情況下實現盈利。現在來看看我們對2022年全年的展望。我們很高興維持2022年全年的收入和訂單量預期。提醒一下，我們預計營收在1,020萬美元至1,070萬美元之間，訂單量在2,300萬美元至2,700萬美元之間。今年迄今為止，我們的訂單量已達2,120萬美元。總體而言，我們對今年迄今為止的商業和財務進展以及整個量子計算行業的狀況感到非常興奮。儘管全球市場目前面臨許多訂單技術產業的逆風，但量子市場仍在快速成長。在這種艱難的市場環境下，許多公司已經放棄了先前的財務預測。

In contrast, IonQ has stood by our earlier estimates, and we continue to exceed our projections. Meanwhile, interest in quantum continues to be promising. Having a quantum strategy is becoming an existential imperative for corporations and governments. We believe investments in quantum is driven by factors that supersede spending limits in the down market, such as what we are seeing with government customers. We already achieved substantial support from the U.S. government this year, but it's worth to note that the DoD alone is expected to increase their investment in Quantum Information Science from $661 million this year to $710 million requested for 2023. IonQ is taking actions like making our data centers government compliant so that we can try to capture a portion of that opportunity. We, at IonQ could not be more pleased with the continued growth of the industry as a whole, and we believe we are well-positioned to continue as a market leader in this space, and we are happy to report another quarter of meeting and exceeding our financial and commercial targets.

相較之下，IonQ 的表現始終保持著我們先前的預期，並且持續超出預期。同時，市場對量子技術的興趣持續看好。制定量子戰略正成為企業和政府的生存之道。我們認為，量子投資的驅動力在於一些超越低迷市場支出限制的因素，例如我們在政府客戶身上看到的。今年我們已經獲得了美國政府的大力支持，但值得注意的是，僅美國國防部就預計將把對量子資訊科學的投資從今年的 6.61 億美元增加到 2023 年申請的 7.1 億美元。 IonQ 正在採取措施，例如使我們的資料中心符合政府標準，以便我們能夠抓住其中的一部分機會。 IonQ 對整個行業的持續成長感到非常高興，我們相信我們有能力繼續保持該領域的市場領先地位，並且很高興地報告，我們又一個季度達到並超過了財務和商業目標。

Back to you, Peter.

回到你身邊，彼得。

Thank you, Thomas. In summary, once again, IonQ is meeting and exceeding all the expectations we have shared with the market. We finished the quarter with $7.3 million in revenue and $21.2 million in bookings year-to-date, putting us on track to hit our financial goals for the full year. Our cash, cash equivalents and investments at the end of Q3 totaled $555.8 million, which we continue to believe will provide us with sufficient runway to get us to profitability without the need to raise additional funds. We achieved our 2022 core technical milestone of 25 algorithmic qubits ahead of schedule. We signed groundbreaking agreements with new customers in both the public and private sector.

謝謝，托馬斯。總而言之，IonQ 再次滿足並超越了我們與市場分享的所有期望。本季度，我們的營收為 730 萬美元，年初至今的訂單量為 2,120 萬美元，這使我們能夠順利實現全年財務目標。截至第三季末，我們的現金、現金等價物和投資總額為 5.558 億美元，我們仍然相信，這將為我們提供足夠的發展空間，使我們無需額外融資即可實現盈利。我們提前實現了 2022 年核心技術里程碑——25 個演算法量子位元。我們與公共和私營部門的新客戶簽署了開創性的協議。

And despite the turbulent economic conditions currently facing the technology industry, we continue to solidify ourselves as the industry leader, capable of consistently executing on our ambitious vision. To those who have been tracking IonQ for years, we appreciate your support and hope you are pleased with how we have furthered our goals since going public just 1 year ago. So those of you who are new to the IonQ story or have been waiting to dig in, we invite you to join us as we continue to take IonQ and the quantum industry to new heights.

儘管科技業目前面臨動盪的經濟形勢，我們仍將持續鞏固行業領導者的地位，並始終如一地實現我們雄心勃勃的願景。對於多年來一直關注 IonQ 的朋友們，我們感謝您的支持，並希望您能對我們自一年前上市以來不斷推進目標的方式感到滿意。因此，對於剛剛了解 IonQ 故事或一直在等待深入了解的朋友們，我們誠摯邀請您加入我們，共同推動 IonQ 和量子產業邁向新的高度。

And with that, I'd like to have the operator open the line for questions.

現在，我想請接線員開通熱線來回答問題。

(Operator Instructions). Our first question comes from Quinn Bolton with Needham & Company.

（操作員指示）。我們的第一個問題來自 Needham & Company 的 Quinn Bolton。

(technical difficulty) the multilayer glass trap. What increase in cubic count do you think you'll be able to achieve? And how important is that to getting to the 60% for algorithmic qubit target by 2025?

（技術困難）多層玻璃阱。您認為立方數能增加多少？這對於2025年實現60%的演算法量子位元目標有多重要？

[We'd like to take that. Using on]...

[我們想接受這個。使用]...

No, go ahead, Chris. Take it.

不，克里斯，拿去吧。拿著。

Chris Monroe, Chief Scientist. So our glass traps will allow us to have multiple zones on a single chip. We call that a multi-core architecture, and that will give us the ability to control many more qubits. And it's basically as simple as that. We know how to add qubits and the -- to get to 64 – algorithmic qubits to get to those numbers, we need higher fidelity, component fidelities on the qubits as well. We know how to make the qubits. It's more about how we control them all. And so the glass traps give us much more flexibility on scaling the number of qubits.

首席科學家克里斯·門羅：我們的玻璃阱可以讓我們在單一晶片上擁有多個區域。我們稱之為多核心架構，這將使我們能夠控制更多量子位元。基本上就是這麼簡單。我們知道如何添加量子比特，以及——為了達到64個——演算法量子比特的數量，我們需要更高的保真度，以及量子比特的組件保真度。我們知道如何製造量子比特。更重要的是我們如何控制它們。因此，玻璃阱讓我們在擴展量子位元數量方面擁有更大的靈活性。

And you mentioned the PIC technology that I think probably involves the lasers used to implement the gates. Is that also -- how important is that new PIC technology to get in at 64 hours.

您提到了 PIC 技術，我認為它可能涉及用於實現門控的雷射。那麼，在 64 小時內推出新的 PIC 技術有多重要？

PIC technology is not immediately needed in the short term, but it's more of a research effort at the company right now. We anticipate needing this for further gains down the line, but not immediately.

PIC技術短期內並非急需，但目前公司仍在進行這方面的研究。我們預期未來需要這項技術來進一步提升業績，但並非立竿見影。

Our next question comes from David Williams with Benchmark.

我們的下一個問題來自 Benchmark 的 David Williams。

And congrats on all the progress and hitting on the milestones. That's definitely refreshing to see. I guess Peter, maybe first to you and others can jump in. But just Thinking about maybe the balance sheet strength and the bookings that you're receiving, everything is moving in the right direction. But I guess as I think about the landscape and although your technology is a bit different, I think, than most others, I would assume there may be some IP assets or infrastructure or other components out there that could be beneficial to accelerate your progress. And I'm just curious if you're seeing anything in terms of IP or any other maybe ways to consolidate and accelerate your path forward here, if that's something that you would be interested in doing.

祝賀你們取得的所有進展，並達成了這些里程碑。這確實令人欣慰。彼得，我想，也許你先說說，其他人也可以加入進來。但想想你們的資產負債表實力和訂單狀況，一切都在朝著正確的方向發展。但我想，考慮到目前的情況，雖然你們的技術與大多數公司略有不同，但我認為可能有一些智慧財產權資產、基礎設施或其他組件，可以加速你們的進展。我很好奇，你們在智慧財產權方面是否有任何進展，或者是否有其他途徑可以鞏固和加速你們的前進步伐，如果你們對此感興趣的話。

It's a great question. And in fact, we are. There's a number of different aspects here. First, it's a difficult environment for sometimes for little start-ups right now. So that provides opportunities for buying, gets some bargain, so to speak. And then the other thing is vertical integration in terms of the hardware itself. And we've started some of that as well. So you expect it in the next year to hear more about that.

這個問題問得很好。事實上，我們確實在這麼做。這裡面有很多不同的面向。首先，現在的環境對小型新創企業來說有時很艱難。所以這為收購提供了機會，可以說是獲得了一些便宜貨。其次，硬體本身的垂直整合也已經開始了。我們也已經開始了一些這方面的工作。所以預計明年會聽到更多關於這方面的消息。

Okay. Great. And then maybe -- and you talked about the obvious increase from 6 to the 25 on the qubit or algorithmic qubits. Can you help me understand exactly what that means? It's hard to, I guess, visualize the 500,000 times increase in power. Can you help me understand, are there any metrics you can put around that may be a little easier to wrap my head around?

好的。太好了。然後也許——你提到了量子位元或演算法量子位元從 6 到 25 的明顯提升。你能幫我理解一下這到底是什麼意思嗎？我猜，很難想像 50 萬倍的算力提升。你能幫我理解一下嗎？有什麼指標能讓我更容易理解嗎？

Maybe Jungsang or Chris, I will talk -- maybe you could talk about how to visualize that one.

也許 Jungsang 或 Chris，我會談談——也許你可以談談如何將其形象化。

Yes, I can help with that. This is Jungsang. So the way we consider the power of quantum computing is in terms of what computational space that is access during the computation, meaning how much -- if you want to model this with classical memory, how much classical memory will be needed to actually finish that computation. And as our quantum computers get more and more powerful, we can actually access exponentially large computational space. We measure that by being the ability to run some benchmark algorithms, and that capability is measured in algorithm qubit. So going from algorithmic qubit of 6 means you can actually run algorithms or 36 qubits some level of complexity and algorithmic qubit of 25 as you're actually now using 25 qubits and running on computation with much deeper complexity and the amount of -- if you were to simulate this with a classical computer, the amount of memory space you would need will have to be about 0.5 million times more to be able to do that. And of course, upon computers do that with the power of quantum.

是的，我可以幫忙。我是 Jungsang。我們衡量量子運算能力的標準是計算過程中存取的計算空間，也就是說，如果用經典記憶體來建模，實際完成該計算需要多少經典記憶體。隨著量子電腦越來越強大，我們實際上可以存取指數級的計算空間。我們透過運行一些基準演算法的能力來衡量這一點，而這種能力是用演算法量子位元來衡量的。因此，從 6 個演算法量子位元開始，意味著你實際上可以運行某種複雜度的演算法或 36 個量子位元；而從 25 個演算法量子位元開始，意味著你實際上可以運行某種複雜度的演算法或 36 個量子位元；而從 25 個演算法量子位元開始，意味著你實際上正在使用 25 個量子位元，並且運行複雜度更高、計算量更大的計算——如果你用經典電腦來模擬這種情況，那麼你需要的記憶體空間大約是 50 萬倍才能做到這一點。當然，在電腦上使用量子運算的能力也能做到這一點。

(Operator Instructions). Our next question comes from Richard Shannon with Craig-Hallum.

（操作員指示）。我們的下一個問題來自 Craig-Hallum 的 Richard Shannon。

Maybe a quick one on your Air Force Research Lab contract you announced at the end of September. Any way you can describe over what time this might be recognized and is this a ratable recognition. Or are there milestones specifically that could make that revenue recognition somewhat lumpy?

能否簡單問一下您在九月底宣布的空軍研究實驗室合約。您能描述一下這筆收入會在什麼時間內確認嗎？這筆收入是按比例確認的嗎？或者說，是否存在一些具體的里程碑事件，可能會使收入確認出現波動？

Thomas, do you want to take that?

湯瑪斯，你想拿走那個嗎？

Absolutely, I can take that. So this is a multiple-element contract, and there are 2 existing parts. One is an access agreement, which will be ratably recognized over 3 years. And the other is where we're helping AFRL build a network node, which will be very important for this entire industry going forward. And that is milestone-based. We will come back with projections for how this is recognized next year on the Q4 call.

當然，我可以接受。這是一份包含多個要素的合同，目前有兩個部分。一個是准入協議，將在三年內按比例確認。另一個是我們正在幫助AFRL建立一個網路節點，這對整個產業的未來發展至關重要。這是基於里程碑的。我們將在明年第四季的電話會議上預測該協議的確認情況。

Okay. That's helpful. And maybe a follow-on question on this topic here. If I caught it correctly, I think another quantum company also announced a contract with Air Force Research Labs, I think, a few weeks after yours. Can you differentiate what you're doing with them versus what the other company is, how that interoperates or is distinct from what they're doing, please?

好的。這很有幫助。也許我可以就此話題繼續提問。如果我沒記錯的話，我記得另一家量子公司也宣布與空軍研究實驗室簽訂了合同，時間比你們晚了幾週。請問您能區分一下你們和那家公司合作的情況嗎？你們的合作計畫是如何互通的？或者說，你們和那家公司合作的專案有何不同？

So these are very separate agreements, and we have not been involved with this other company. and their agreement.

所以這些都是非常獨立的協議，我們沒有參與這家其他公司及其協議。

Okay. That is helpful. I did want to follow up on a previous question on the PIC here, twofold. My first one on my own here is what PIC is this a silicon photonic PIC? Or could you describe it in any more detail? And then in response to the last question, you said it's something down the road here. Can you give us a sense of where that intersection point within your road map that will be required?

好的。這很有幫助。我確實想跟進之前關於PIC的問題，有兩個面向。我的第一個問題是，PIC是什麼？它是矽光子PIC嗎？或者您能更詳細地描述一下嗎？然後，在回答最後一個問題時，您說這是未來的發展方向。您能否告訴我們，您的路線圖中所需的交叉點在哪裡？

Yes. This is Jungsang Kim. The answer, yes, this PIC will be based on, in general, scope of silicon photonics technology. And I think at this point, we are not in a position to guide exactly when this will be intersecting with our future products.

是的，我是金正尚。答案是肯定的，這款 PIC 將基於矽光子技術的整體範圍。我認為目前我們還無法準確預測它何時會與我們未來的產品交叉。

Okay. That's fair enough. My last question, I'll jump on the line since we have both the Jungsang and Chris, I'll ask -- just the progress over the year that you've been public here in terms of qubit arrogate using your trap [dime] in technology here. I think one of your thesis founding the company here in the public markets is error rates are better. Maybe if you can quote and summarize the research that you've seen over the last year and where are rates play out versus other technologies and even other companies versions of their technologies and [Ion Trap] and otherwise, that would be great. That's all for me.

好的。這很公平。我的最後一個問題，既然Jungsang和Chris都來了，我就直接問吧——你們上市一年來，在量子比特方面，利用你們的離子阱技術取得了哪些進展？我認為你們在公開市場創立公司的論點之一是，錯誤率更低。如果你能引用並總結一下你過去一年看到的研究，看看錯誤率與其他技術，甚至其他公司版本的技術（離子阱）相比如何，那就太好了。我的就這麼多。

Maybe I'll start real quick. Chris Monroe here. Again, we know with the Ion Trap technology that there is a type of error we expect at some level, and we're not at that level yet. So what that means is all of our errors are not intrinsic to the quantum technology, the qubit itself, they are dominated by the controllers. And for us, that means optics, it means electronics and so forth. And this is all the time why we've had such confidence in our ability to execute on the road map. So over the last year, we've certainly learned that we can exploit the types of errors that we know are there that are dictated by [controlled errors]. They're not inherent errors. They're not so-called decoherence. And that means that we can expand the scope of air correction, and there's many different types of ways to mitigate that error. And Jungsang, why don't you step in if you want to add to that?

我先快速開始吧。我是克里斯·門羅。再說一次，我們知道離子阱技術在某種程度上存在某種我們預料到的誤差，但我們還沒有達到那個程度。這意味著，我們所有的誤差都不是量子技術或量子位元本身固有的，它們是由控制器控制的。對我們來說，這意味著光學、電子等等。這也是我們一直以來對執行路線圖的能力如此有信心的原因。在過去的一年裡，我們確實了解到，我們可以利用我們所知的、由[受控誤差]決定的誤差類型。它們不是固有誤差，也不是所謂的退相干。這意味著我們可以擴大空氣校正的範圍，而且有許多不同的方法可以減輕這種誤差。 Jungsang，如果你想補充一下，為什麼不加入進來呢？

Sure. So in the research arena, I think we -- including my research group at the University and my colleagues have really had gained a much deeper understanding of what the dominant control aero sources are. And we've also been inventing control techniques to actually overcome those in many different…

當然。所以在研究領域，我認為我們——包括我在大學的研究小組和我的同事——對主要的控制氣動源有了更深入的理解。我們也一直在發明控制技術，以在許多不同的領域中克服這些問題…

(technical difficulty)

（技術難度）

I think we lost our speaker.

我想我們失去了我們的發言人。

Yes, I think Jungsang stepped off. But I'm well aware of Jungsang’s research in this area, and they've been able to isolate errors to such an extent that we know how to, in a sense, by algorithmic design, make the errors cancel themselves out. And that's one method of what we call air mitigation. And we know air correction is something that we will be deploying as we scale our AQ numbers up. But air mitigation is -- I think it's just another card we can play in taking care of those errors. And to get to your fundamental question, never did we talk about the fundamental errors of our qubits. And because they're [algom], because they're atomic clocks, we're not yet at the level where we're limited by those. So again, we're forging forward and we expect the next few years to continue along that vein.

是的，我認為Jungsang已經退出了。但我非常了解Jungsang在這個領域的研究，他們已經能夠將誤差隔離到一定程度，以至於我們知道如何透過演算法設計，讓誤差在某種意義上相互抵消。這就是我們所說的「空氣緩解」方法之一。我們知道，隨著AQ（空氣品質）的提升，我們將部署空氣校正。但我認為，空氣緩解只是我們處理這些誤差時可以打出的另一張牌。回到你的根本問題，我們從未討論過量子位元的根本誤差。因為它們是（演算法），因為它們是原子鐘，所以我們還沒有達到受這些誤差限制的水平。所以，我們仍在不斷前進，並預計未來幾年將繼續沿著這條思路前進。

Our next question is from Kevin Garrigan with WestPark Capital.

我們的下一個問題來自 WestPark Capital 的 Kevin Garrigan。

Let me echo my congrats on the progress. I apologize for any background noise. I'm in the airport now. So just one quick question for me. Regarding your partnership with Dell, can you give us a sense of how the conversations with Dell went and how you were able to capture that partnership? Do they believe ion-trap is the future for quantum computing architecture? Or is your [artist] performance what they were looking for? Any color there would be great.

讓我再次祝賀你們的進展。抱歉打擾了。我現在在機場。我只想問一個簡單的問題。關於你們與戴爾的合作，能否介紹一下你們與戴爾的談判進展如何，以及你們是如何促成這次合作的？他們是否認為離子阱是量子運算架構的未來？或者說，你們的表演是他們想要的嗎？任何顏色都很棒。

Yes, I can help with that. I think that the Dell HPC group, in particular, who we've been working with has seen a lot of interest in quantum from people who own HPC systems. This is what is typically called hybrid, quantum supercomputing. And obviously, Dell is a leading player in that marketplace. So they're seeing customer demand. And they reached out to us to inquire if we would be interested in working with them to work on a solution. So for the last roughly year or so, we've been working on the software back and forth between the 2 of us to get the software ready to go so that the hardware would be working together. And at Super Compute '22 is the -- is the combination of that, which is going this week. And you'll see us in the Dell booth talking about hybrid compute. Also, hybrid compute this marriage between supercomputers and quantum computers is a large focus of the DOE in terms of what to do next after the exoscale project. So it's also an important area for government and obviously for industry going forward.

是的，我可以幫忙。我認為，特別是我們一直在合作的戴爾高效能運算團隊，已經看到許多擁有高效能運算系統的人對量子技術感興趣。這通常被稱為混合量子超級計算。顯然，戴爾是該市場的領導者。所以他們看到了客戶的需求。他們聯絡我們，詢問我們是否有興趣與他們合作開發解決方案。在過去大約一年的時間裡，我們雙方一直在反覆開發軟體，以確保軟體能夠正常運行，從而實現硬體協同工作。本週舉行的 Super Compute '22 就是兩者的結合。你會在戴爾展位看到我們討論混合計算。此外，混合計算——超級電腦和量子電腦的結合——是美國能源部在外層級專案之後的重點關注點。因此，這對政府以及未來的工業界來說也是一個重要的領域。

Our next question is from Trevor [Jansky] with Needham.

我們的下一個問題來自 Needham 的 Trevor [Jansky]。

This is Trevor on for Quinn Bolton. He had to jump. But real quick, on the second ARS system, can you give us a timeline on when that is going to be finished? And will this likely be the last ARIA system being built?

我是特雷弗，代替奎因·博爾頓發言。他必須得跳槽。不過，關於第二個ARS系統，您能給我們一個完成的時間表嗎？這會不會是最後一個正在建造的ARIA系統？

Yes, I can take that. The next ARIA system will be ready roughly towards the end of your first quarter is when it will start to come online. And then this will probably be the last ARIA system that we built. After this, it will be Forte and other technologies, rather – we built the second one for both redundancy and also be able to hit customer demand.

是的，我可以接受。下一個ARIA系統大約在第一季末準備就緒，屆時它將開始上線。到那時，這很可能就是我們建造的最後一個ARIA系統了。之後，我們將採用Forte和其他技術——我們建立了第二個系統，既是為了冗餘，也是為了滿足客戶需求。

Okay. And do you expect the glass trap to help fidelities at all? Or is that more for just the scaling?

好的。你覺得玻璃陷阱對保真度有幫助嗎？還是說它只是用來縮放的？

Chris or Jungsang, would you like to take that?

克里斯或正尚，你想拿那個嗎？

Yes, I can take that, Chris, here. No, we don't -- in fact, the trap itself, that is the electrodes that can find the atoms, they have almost no impact on the performance of the quantum system. And again, this harks back to the advantage of having suspended individual atoms. The electrodes are miles away atomically speaking. They're almost a fraction of a millimeter away and atoms are very small thing. So having different electrode structures really don't affect the qubit directly. It's all about ease of control, being able to I think of it like the magnetically levitated train, the train tracks are not directly influencing the performance of the trains. And that's really what we have here.

是的，克里斯，我可以接受。不，我們不會——事實上，陷阱本身，也就是能夠找到原子的電極，它們對量子系統的性能幾乎沒有影響。這又回到了懸浮單個原子的優勢。從原子層面來說，電極之間的距離很遠。它們幾乎只有幾分之一毫米，而原子是非常小的物體。所以，不同的電極結構其實不會直接影響量子位元。這完全是為了方便控制​​，就像磁浮列車一樣，火車軌道不會直接影響列車的性能。這就是我們現在所面臨的情況。

Awesome. And then just one quick one. Did Harmony's AQ increase as well like it did last quarter?

太棒了。然後我只想問一句。 Harmony 的 AQ 也像上季一樣成長了嗎？

Not that no, we brought it up to an EQ of 6, but that's where it stays today. It would probably need hardware modifications to get better.

不是說不行，我們把它的EQ調到了6，但到現在還是這個水平。可能需要硬體改進才能更好。

We've read the end of the question-and-answer session. I'd now like to turn the call over to Peter Chapman for closing remarks.

問答環節已宣讀完畢。現在，請彼得·查普曼致閉幕詞。

Well, just thanks, everyone, for your time today. It's obviously been a fantastic quarter. We'll look to close out the year. We believe, obviously, that both on our projections for recognized revenue and bookings will be successful. And we look forward to talking with you at the -- for the Q4 call in the spring. Thanks, everyone. Appreciate the time.

好的，非常感謝大家今天的寶貴時間。這顯然是一個非常棒的季度。我們期待著為今年畫下圓滿的句點。我們堅信，無論是確認收入還是預訂量，我們的預測都將成功。我們期待在春季第四季電話會議上與您溝通。謝謝大家，謝謝您抽出時間。

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.

今天的會議到此結束。您可以掛斷電話了，感謝您的參與。