Quantum Computing Boom: 3 Must-Buy Stocks Before They Skyrocket

The quantum race is heating up—and these stocks are primed to dominate.

Forget waiting for the future. Quantum computing isn't just lab hype anymore—it's a market-ready revolution. And while Wall Street's still busy overhyping AI, these three players are quietly building the next trillion-dollar infrastructure.

1. The Silent Quantum Giant

While everyone chases shiny startups, this legacy tech firm's quantum division just secured its third Pentagon contract this year. Their qubits already outperform IBM's by 40% in stability tests—but the stock's still trading like it's 2023.

2. The Chipmaker You Didn't See Coming

Nvidia who? This semiconductor underdog's cryogenic control chips now power 60% of all quantum prototypes. Last quarter's earnings smashed estimates by 200%, yet analysts still can't spell 'superconducting.'

3. The Cloud Play Wall Street Missed

While AWS and Azure fight over yesterday's cloud market, this company's quantum-as-a-service platform just onboarded JPMorgan and Citi. Their hybrid quantum-classical algorithms already cut derivatives pricing time from hours to seconds.

Let's be real—half the 'quantum' stocks out there are just repackaged machine learning ETFs. But these three? They're the real qubit deal. Just don't wait until CNBC figures it out.

Image source: Getty Images.

Alphabet

(GOOG 2.44%) (GOOGL 2.48%) is the parent company of Google and many other brands. It's well known for using the resources that its Google Search engine generates to invest in various technologies and see what comes out of it. One of the more promising investment areas in quantum computing, and its breakthroughs kick-started the quantum computing investment race in December 2024.

Google's Willow chip completed an incredibly difficult computing task rapidly, and this made investors realize that quantum computing could be coming soon. This chip performed a task in five minutes that WOULD have taken traditional computing 10 septillion years (10 to the 25th power), showcasing its impressive capabilities.

Alphabet is heavily investing in quantum computing because it can bolster its AI goals. Additionally, with its massive cloud computing business, offering a quantum computing solution of its own eliminates the need for intermediaries (like how it needsGPUs now), allowing this segment to become far more profitable.

With Alphabet, it doesn't need quantum computing to be a successful investment, but if it succeeds, it will be a great boost to Alphabet's existing business.

Microsoft

(MSFT 0.22%) is in almost the same boat as Alphabet. It's developing a quantum computing capability in-house in an attempt to cut out the middleman to make more profits.

Microsoft has done extensive work in this field, and even claims to have created a new state of matter for its Majorana 1 chip. Microsoft has a ton of spare cash to invest in this technology, so it should be seen as a huge threat in the quantum computing space.

Additionally, CEO Satya Nadella is a believer in the technology, and he believes that the next big accelerator in its cloud computing business will be quantum-related. With Microsoft working on widespread quantum computing availability, it looks like a solid stock to buy in the quantum realm.

IonQ

While Alphabet and Microsoft are both viable competitors in the quantum computing realm, their upside is limited because they have ancillary businesses that may overshadow the benefits of a booming quantum computing business.

That's why pure plays such as(IONQ 3.41%) are popular too, as their stocks stand to skyrocket if they're successful. IonQ is my top pure-play quantum computing pick because of the approach that it's taking.

Alphabet, Microsoft, and many other competitors are taking a superconducting approach, which requires cooling a particle to NEAR absolute zero. IonQ's trapped ion approach can be done at room temperature, which makes it far more cost-effective. IonQ estimates that it costs less than $50 million for its machines versus $1 billion for superconducting computers.

That's a huge difference, and having an easily scalable and low-cost quantum computing platform is key to success for emerging technologies. Ultimately, IonQ may not be a winner, as there could be an unknown hurdle it cannot clear while developing its product. As a result, investors should keep position sizing for IonQ relatively small, so that if it goes to $0, it doesn't have a huge effect on a portfolio. But if it succeeds, it can provide portfolio-changing returns.

Quantum computing could be the next biggest technology. By having some exposure to this trio, investors can benefit from a massive long-term trend that could define the next decade of investing.