IonQ vs. Microsoft: Which Stock Has More Quantum Upside in October?

Quantum stocks are struggling even as companies continue to make progress in the technology. That tension is particularly visible in IonQ IONQ, a pure-play quantum company, whose shares have struggled even as the company accelerated its technology roadmap. In September alone, IonQ launched its Superion 256 platform, raised its 2026 revenue outlook to $450-$460 million, demonstrated real-time quantum error decoding and announced that Superion 256 will be deployed at NVIDIA's NVDA Accelerated Quantum Research Center. Microsoft MSFT, meanwhile, is expanding its quantum-computing business while pursuing a fundamentally different approach.