"It isn't certain when quantum computers will be able to break the encryption used to protect the world's most sensitive data, but corporate technology leaders need to assess the risks of this scenario now.
Quantum physics, famously regarded by Albert Einstein as "spooky," has always fed the imagination with the promise of unimaginable future technological prowess. While time travel remains science fiction, quantum computing is very real and holds the potential to take computing power to another level entirely.
Even the most powerful traditional computers use binary digits, or bits, which can either be zeroes or ones. Quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits, which represent and store information in both zeroes and ones simultaneously, known as superposition. Such machines have the potential to sort through a vast number of possible solutions to a problem within a fraction of a second to come up with a likely answer.
IBM is on track to deliver a fault-tolerant, error-corrected system by 2029, according to IBM Director of Research Dario Gil, and expects to achieve "quantum advantage" with its systems even before that point. That means solving some problems faster or more accurately than traditional computers by providing precise solutions to problems whose answers can only be estimated today.
The big question, Gil said, is when this research will lead to so-called fault-tolerant quantum computers, which will have the capacity to correct the errors that occur when quantum machines interact with interferences from the outside world, including sound, microwaves or temperature fluctuations. Those interactions disrupt the fragile quantum state in which these machines are effective, narrowing the window in which they can function and the work they can do.
A fault-tolerant quantum computer will be able to hammer away at problems indefinitely, giving them wherewithal to break encryption algorithms that companies and governments use to protect their most price-sensitive and important information, Gil said.
That moment might reasonably occur by around 2035, he estimated, but regardless of the timing, he is convinced it will happen.
"The reality is that the thing that we used for that ultimate line of defense is vulnerable. It will be broken. There's no ifs or buts about it," Gil said.
Why worry about a scenario that is looming perhaps a decade or more in the future? Because of a scenario some call "harvest now, decrypt later."
It envisions hackers stealing encrypted data today and sitting on it for years, hoping to realize its value at some point in the future when quantum computers are able to decrypt the information, said Markus Pflitsch, founder and chief executive of quantum-computing company Terra Quantum.
Quantum computing has already progressed enough that companies can begin strategizing now for Q Day, the point at which quantum computers can break classic encryption, Pflitsch said. That means adopting so-called quantum-safe algorithms that can't be hacked by other quantum technology because they make use of problems that are difficult for quantum computers to solve.
In August, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, an agency of the Commerce Department, published three new algorithms for post-quantum encryption.
Some companies are already moving ahead. But for many companies and individuals, quantum safe algorithms will be built into the services that they use, just as encryption is built into many software and services today." [1]
1. It Is Time To Worry About Quantum Security. Rosenbush, Steven. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 10 Oct 2024: B.5.
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