IonQ co-founder and CTO Jungsang Kim departing firm
During IonQ’s fourth-quarter earnings call Wednesday afternoon, IonQ CEO Peter Chapman announced that the company’s co-founder and current CTO Jungsang Kim would be leaving the firm to return to academia, following a similar path to that of Chris Monroe, IonQ’s other co-founder, who returned to academic and research pursuits last year.
“At the end of the quarter, Jungsang will transition out of his post as our CTO at IonQ to turn more of his attention back to his academic activities,” Chapman said during the earnings call. “He will continue to advise IonQ on trapped ion quantum computing as a scientific adviser and as a resource for IonQ’s senior technical executives.” Monroe’s departure from IonQ was announced with similar language last October.
Both Kim and Monroe continued to hold titles as professors at Duke University and positions with the Duke Quantum Center during their tenures at IonQ. The company continues to have an agreement with the research institute “to exclusively capture royalty-free all intellectual property generated there that pertains to trapped ion quantum computing,” Chapman noted.
Further commenting on Kim’s departure, Chapman said Kim had fulfilled a number of different technical leadership jobs at the company over the last several years, moving around as needed and as various jobs were filled by permanent hires as the company grew its workforce. “We’ve gotten now to the point where we have a full management team,” said Chapman, who was IonQ’s third employee after Monroe and Kim founded the company.
Dan O’Shea has covered telecommunications and related topics including semiconductors, sensors, retail systems, digital payments and quantum computing/technology for over 25 years.