$IONQ Mihir Bhaskar is IonQ's SVP of Global R&D and co-founded Lightsynq, the quantum memory company IonQ acquired. He showed a three year roadmap for IonQ's quantum interconnect. In 2026, the interconnect connects IonQ's own ion trap computers to each other inside a datacenter. The 2027 generation extends the same interconnect to neutral atom computers built by other companies, across a metropolitan area up to 30 kilometers. The roadmap names high-frequency trading, DI-QKD, and VLBI as applications for this layer. DI-QKD is device-independent quantum key distribution, an emerging encryption protocol. VLBI is very long baseline interferometry, the technique radio astronomers use to combine signals from telescopes thousands of kilometers apart. By 2028, the roadmap projects compatibility with superconducting computers built by other companies and reach past 100 kilometers. The applications named are full quantum data centers and blind quantum computing. Blind quantum computing is the protocol that lets a customer run a program on a remote quantum computer without revealing the program to the operator. Bhaskar said the roadmap is at least five years ahead of what any other industry player projects. Other quantum hardware companies face the same scaling problem. Bhaskar said all quantum platforms will ultimately need to connect individual processors into a data center. The interconnect on this roadmap is the one IonQ is offering to those companies. DARPA's HARQ program selected IonQ as the only commercial company in its hardware workstream this month. The hardware workstream is the part of the program building the actual interconnects. IonQ made the first commercial deployment of a quantum memory node at the University of Maryland this month. The $7.5 million system joined the Mid-Atlantic Region Quantum Internet. By 2028 the customer list for IonQ's interconnect includes the companies building neutral atom and superconducting computers.