IonQ (IONQ +1.87%) closed Thursday at $35.77, up almost 12% in a single session as quantum computing stocks rallied. Even after that jump, shares of the quantum computing specialist sit about 58% below their 52-week high of $84.64. And yet the company still carries a market capitalization of $13.35 billion. So the stock manages to look beaten down and expensive at the same time. Here's a closer look at what has to go right for today's price to work out. Growth from a very small base Highlighting why the stock attracts so much attention, IonQ's first-quarter revenue rose 755% year over year to $64.7 million, coming in 30% above the midpoint of management's own guidance. Growth like that is nearly impossible to find elsewhere in the market, and I understand why investors are drawn to it. The composition of the revenue is encouraging, too. About 60% of it came from commercial customers rather than governments, about 35% came from international customers, and more than a third came from customers buying across product lines -- quantum computers, networking, and sensing. The order book is filling up even faster. Remaining performance obligations, or the future revenue IonQ already has under contract, reached $470 million in the quarter, up 554% year over year. Management raised its full-year outlook, too. It now expects revenue of $260 million to $270 million in 2026, which it says represents organic growth of more than 100% year over year. Meanwhile, the technology keeps advancing. During the quarter, IonQ sold its first 256-qubit, sixth-generation system to the University of Cambridge, completed the first commercial demonstration of two connected quantum computers, and published its blueprint for fault-tolerant quantum computing. The company also picked up a $39 million Space Development Agency contract during the period. "We are now moving from component-level