IonQ announces $22M deal with EPB to deploy a Forte Enterprise system and establish Chattanooga as the first U.S. quantum computing & networking hub
On 2025-04-25 IonQ announced a $22 million agreement with Chattanooga utility EPB to build an EPB Quantum Center housing a shared IonQ Forte Enterprise quantum computer alongside the existing EPB Quantum Network, positioning EPB as the first utility to commercially offer quantum computing and secure quantum networking. IonQ will open a Chattanooga office for support and training; build-out and commissioning were targeted for early 2026, with joint work on energy-grid optimization algorithms.
A $22M contract that physically deploys a Forte Enterprise system at a utility is a concrete system-sale-plus-deployment, not an MoU, and pairs IonQ computing with operational quantum networking at a named municipal-infrastructure site.
Embedding a quantum computer inside a utility creates an early reference customer for grid-optimization use cases and a template for utility-anchored regional quantum hubs in the U.S.