• Nvidia simulates 104 qubits using JUPITER, Europe's first exascale supercomputer
• The technique reportedly reduces physical qubit requirements by 90%
• Magic state cultivation could reduce hardware demands for fault-tolerant quantum computing

Nvidia researchers have simulated a 104-qubit quantum computing system on JUPITER, Europe's first exascale supercomputer, validating a technique that requires 90% fewer physical qubits.

The experiment took place at Germany's Jülich Supercomputing Centre, where researchers examined how quantum computing systems could operate reliably.

The team investigated magic state cultivation, an approach to fault-tolerant quantum computing that could reduce the physical resources required for complex calculations.

New technique reduces quantum computing hardware requirements

Quantum processors are vulnerable to environmental interference, which introduces errors and makes accurate calculations increasingly difficult as systems grow larger.

Researchers are developing fault tolerance methods to address these problems, enabling quantum computers to maintain computational accuracy despite errors affecting individual physical components.

One approach involves producing specially prepared quantum resources called magic states, which are consumed during operations required for fault-tolerant quantum calculations.

Producing these resources requires substantial computing capacity, making improvements in their preparation important for reducing the hardware demands of useful quantum systems.

Nvidia's simulation examined magic state cultivation, incorporating realistic hardware noise, which allowed researchers to investigate errors that earlier simulations conducted under ideal conditions could not adequately represent.

"Useful quantum computing will require fantastically complex, fault-tolerant systems—and understanding how they behave at scale is essential to building them," said Jensen Huang, Nvidia's CEO and founder.

"Our results from Jülich show how quantum processors and GPU supercomputers can work together to tackle research that would otherwise be out of reach—accelerating the discovery of transformative quantum applications."

Earlier research at Jülich simulated 50 qubits under ideal conditions, while the latest experiment incorporated realistic hardware noise.

The experiment nevertheless used classical computing infrastructure to simulate quantum operations rather than testing the technique on a functioning quantum processor.

JUPITER enables large-scale quantum simulations

Located in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, JUPITER provided the computing capacity needed to model complex quantum operations that conventional systems struggle to simulate.

The supercomputer used Nvidia GH200 processors for the experiment, with researchers scaling their methods to 8,192 GPUs.

Before moving to JUPITER, the team developed and tested its simulation methods using Nvidia's GB200 NVL72 system at the company's Accelerated Quantum Research Center.

Researchers expanded their initial tests from four graphics processors to hundreds, evaluating performance and accuracy before deploying the methods on the larger machine.

These preparations reduced simulations that previously required several weeks to just days, helping researchers use JUPITER's computing resources more efficiently.

The team also used Nvidia's cuQuantum software and CUDA Q platform to simulate quantum circuits and represent the operations involved in magic state cultivation.

The results could help researchers assess quantum processor designs before constructing hardware, potentially reducing the need for costly physical experiments during development.

However, Nvidia's result remains a simulation, and further experimental work must establish whether the technique delivers comparable benefits on actual quantum hardware.

Although AI has sucked up all the bandwidth of public discourse across the tech industry, quantum computing is arguably just as revolutionary a technology – but remains dormant for now. That said, key breakthroughs in the last couple of years are said to mean that these machines could be 'useful' before too long.

Quantum advantage

IBM's senior vice president and director of research Dario Gil explained to CBS' 60 Minutes exactly what the likely impact of useful quantum computers would be.

The idea of quantum advantage, he said, was slightly difficult to wrap your head around. That's certain given the ratcheting-up effect in terms of power that happens when you begin to scale up these machines from just a handful of quantum bits (qubits) to thousands, tens of thousands and beyond.

Because the capabilities of quantum computers grow exponentially the more qubits that you add to the system, it could one day achieve things we haven't been able to even conceptualise yet due to the rigid parameters of existing computing.

More problems

Quantum computing does represent a paradigm shift, as Gil was trying to convey, but that doesn't mean simply building powerful hardware will help us achieve anything. Scientists are also aware that we need to define problems to solve using these future machines.

Many companies like IBM and others have been granting businesses access to quantum computers through the cloud, but these have primarily been used for early pilot programs, to build proprietary algorithms or gear their systems for future hardware.

For example, both Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen have partnered with the IBM Quantum Network to simulate chemical reactions inside EV battery cells.

• DARPA will now test Microsoft's controversial quantum hardware inside a dedicated Maryland facility
• Majorana 2 uses a different approach to tackle quantum computing's stubborn error problem
• Microsoft is putting its topological quantum claims under independent government scrutiny

Microsoft has opened a 15,000 square foot quantum research center inside the University of Maryland's Discovery District, a year after the project was first announced.

The facility gives the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) physical access to Microsoft's latest topological quantum system for independent testing.

Previously, DARPA and other outside researchers could only test Microsoft's hardware through cloud-based remote access, making this the first time an external agency will evaluate its topological hardware on-site.

DARPA gets hands-on access to Majorana 2

The system installed for testing includes qubits built on Majorana 2, Microsoft's second-generation topological quantum computing chip.

Topological qubits are designed to reduce the burden of quantum error correction compared with other existing qubit approaches currently in use.

Quantum computers remain highly sensitive to environmental noise, meaning useful systems must detect and correct errors repeatedly while calculations are underway.

Majorana 2's material stack replaces aluminum with lead, a substitution Microsoft says improves overall performance and stability.

The chip has drawn criticism from some scientists, who remained skeptical of Microsoft's earlier performance claims, but Microsoft says the delivery to DARPA may help address that skepticism by opening its hardware to an outside testing team which brings expertise across hardware, control systems, software, and applications, according to the company.

Microsoft describes independent access as a necessary step toward assessing whether its approach can produce an economically relevant quantum computer.

The quantum computing industry does not have a broadly useful, fault-tolerant machine that consistently outperforms classical computers on commercially important work.

DARPA's evaluation falls under the Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing program, part of its broader Quantum Benchmarking Initiative.

That wider initiative aims to determine whether competing quantum computing approaches can produce commercially useful machines by 2033.

"DARPA is an ideal partner for our work because its test and evaluation team brings expertise across the computing stack," Microsoft said in a blog post.

A shared space for training and industry partners

Beyond the DARPA testing area, the center includes a hands-on quantum hardware makerspace built for students, researchers, and career changers entering the field.

Seven companies have joined this effort so far, including AMD, Intel, Bluefors, IQM, Riverlane, Quantum Motion, and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Fermilab's involvement also extends into a collaboration exploring how its Quantum Instrumentation Control Kit could support broader quantum education efforts.

In the makerspace, visitors will assemble small but functional quantum systems using parts sourced from several leading hardware and computing companies.

Microsoft credits Maryland's Capital of Quantum Initiative, led by Governor Wes Moore, with funding the renovation of the original Discovery Center building.

The Maryland facility will also let prospective partners test how their own technologies work with Microsoft's broader quantum platform.

Hardware engineers can use the space to integrate machines or components, while developers explore possible applications.

Microsoft's strategy centers on supporting multiple quantum hardware types through one shared software and infrastructure layer.

Knowing what ‘quantum’ is and why it affects the internet may not be something most people understand. How a physics concept changes the security of the internet isn’t really at the forefront of most people’s worries.

But the change is already happening. The internet is preparing for a post-quantum world that renders much of the encryption the world has relied on obsolete. To understand just how powerful post-quantum decryption is, think of enigma: an encryption machine that took the entire secret operation of Bletchley park over a year to crack would be solved almost instantly. For today’s standard public-key encryption algorithms, it's a matter of days or hours.

By some estimates, the viability of quantum computers capable of this level of decryption are still several years away. But preparations are already happening - and not just by the good guys.

How the good guys and bad guys are preparing for Q-Day

Given that quantum computers capable of decrypting the current algorithms many businesses rely on today are all but inevitable, hackers have begun stealing troves of files that they cannot currently crack but will have huge value once commercially available quantum computers become available.

To get ahead of the curve, governance bodies have begun introducing regulations to ensure businesses and services are fully protected ahead of time, using longer, more robust encryption methods that can hold up against the quantum threat.

But the shift to protecting against quantum threats introduces new problems for the wider internet. Longer signatures during exchanges add to congestion, and when multiplied by the millions of terabytes of data transferred across the internet each day, this could compound into a serious logistical problem if the necessary steps are not taken.

OpenSSL is one of the world's most widely deployed open source cryptographic libraries. It has been developing open-source post-quantum cryptography to help secure businesses (and the internet) in the billions of secure online interactions that happen every day.

Ahead of OpenSSL Conference 2026, I spoke to Tim Hudson, President of OpenSSL Corporation, about the post-quantum challenges and how organizations can best prepare for a post-quantum internet.

• What challenges will infrastructure providers face in trying to handle a quantum-safe internet that requires significantly larger digital signatures? What sort of capacity, bandwidth, and latency increases could we expect to see and how can they be addressed?

It helps to separate two migrations that are usually collapsed into one. Key exchange is largely solved and already deployed — hybrid post-quantum key agreement has been running in mainstream browsers and CDNs for well over a year, and most people reading this have been using it without noticing. Signatures are the unsolved part.

The numbers drive everything. An ML-DSA-44 signature is 2,420 bytes with a 1,312-byte public key, against 64 bytes for ECDSA P-256. Add certificate chain signatures and the two Certificate Transparency timestamps browsers require, and a naive substitution adds somewhere between 7KB and 10KB to every new connection.

The problem is not aggregate bandwidth, which is cheap. It is that this pushes handshakes past the initial congestion window — roughly 14KB — and past QUIC's anti-amplification limit. Cross those and you buy an extra round trip on every fresh connection. That is a tail-latency problem, and it lands hardest on mobile, satellite, lossy links and constrained devices.

The fixes are architectural, not bigger pipes: Merkle Tree Certificates, trust anchor negotiation, and suppressing intermediates. This is a PKI redesign, not a library upgrade.

• How would you recommend CISOs navigate budgetary constraints when trying to secure their business for the quantum era? What are the critical assets to secure?

Two principles save real money. First, inventory before procurement. You cannot budget a migration you have not scoped, and the discovery phase in a complex estate runs six to twelve months. A cryptographic bill of materials is now explicitly on the regulatory agenda, so this work is not optional in any case.

Second, buy agility rather than algorithms. Products marketed as "quantum-safe" are a poor investment. The ability to change algorithm without redesigning the surrounding system will still be valuable in fifteen years; any specific algorithm choice may not be.

For prioritisation, the useful distinction is between confidentiality and authentication. Recorded traffic can be decrypted retrospectively, so anything requiring long-term secrecy is urgent today. Signatures cannot be forged retroactively — a signature made in 2026 and verified in 2026 is not at risk — so authentication is a scheduling problem, not an emergency.

That points at the genuinely critical assets: hardware roots of trust, firmware and code-signing keys, HSM-held key material, PKI roots with twenty-year validity, and long-lived embedded or operational technology. Those are the things you cannot retrofit later. Everything else is a software update.

• Are there any technologies that businesses can leverage now to maintain backwards compatibility with their existing data and processes as they adopt quantum-safe cryptography?

Several, and most are already in production. Hybrid key establishment is the obvious one. TLS 1.3 negotiates it cleanly and falls back to classical algorithms when the peer does not support post-quantum, so deployment carries little compatibility risk. For certificates, composite and dual-chain approaches let a single deployment satisfy both old and new relying parties during transition.

The less visible but more important layer is cryptographic abstraction. The OpenSSL Library provider architecture exists precisely so algorithm implementations can be replaced without touching application code, and that is the mechanism that makes the transition survivable for anyone with a large codebase.

On the interface side, PKCS#11 v3.2 defines post-quantum mechanisms so HSM-backed applications share a common API, and KMIP handles key lifecycles across multi-vendor estates. I work on both of those standards, and the aim is the same: rotate the algorithm without re-plumbing the system.

One caution. Hybrid is a transition, not a destination — the Australian Signals Directorate is explicit on that point. If you deploy a hybrid, budget for the second migration now rather than discovering it in 2029.

• What role will open source infrastructure play in the post-quantum internet, and are there any unique challenges or opportunities open-source technologies face?

Interoperability is the whole problem, and open source is where interoperability actually gets settled.

Agreeing on an algorithm is necessary but nowhere near sufficient. A working internet migration requires implementations that genuinely interoperate at the byte level, across every vendor, under real conditions.

That agreement gets reached in shared, publicly testable code far more reliably than in specification documents. The practical consequence is that a handful of open source implementations effectively set the pace of the entire transition.

The opportunity is scrutiny. Post-quantum algorithms are new, and most real-world cryptographic failures are implementation defects rather than mathematical ones. Side-channel weaknesses are found by people who can read and attack the code.

The challenges are the familiar ones, and unresolved. Funding remains disproportionate to dependency. Validation lag is the sharper issue: FIPS and Common Criteria validated modules trail published standards by years, so regulated organisations facing 2030 deadlines may find conformant code exists but validated code does not.

That ecosystem problem is a large part of why the OpenSSL Conference in Prague in October each year is scoped across cryptography and security generally rather than around any single project.

• In your opinion, is regulation and governance moving fast enough to prepare businesses of all sizes for Q-day? Are there any shortfalls you would like to see addressed?

The direction is right; the coverage is uneven. The pace has changed materially in 2026. In June the US issued Executive Order 14412 and OMB Memorandum M-26-15, setting hard dates for federal civilian systems and putting cryptographic bills of materials on the agenda.

Australia's Signals Directorate holds one of the more demanding positions globally, expecting a refined transition plan by the end of this year and traditional asymmetric cryptography retired by the end of 2030. The EU roadmap runs national plans to end-2026, high-risk systems to 2030, and full transition to 2035.

Four shortfalls. Guidance is written for large regulated enterprises; smaller organisations receive exhortation rather than tooling. Validation throughput is a binding constraint that no mandate addresses.

Nothing credible covers deployed embedded and operational technology with fifteen to twenty-five year service lives and no update path — that is a replacement program, not a migration, and nobody has funded it. And procurement rules should require demonstrated agility and CBOM (Cryptographic Bill of Materials) disclosure rather than algorithm checkboxes.

I would also retire the "Q-day" framing. The deadlines that will actually bind organisations are being set by regulators, insurers and procurement teams, not by physics.

• What should those outside of the business world expect to see changing as we approach a quantum-safe internet, and what can they do to prepare?

Mostly, they should expect not to notice. The browser and operating system on your desk have very likely been performing post-quantum key exchange for more than a year without announcing it. That is what a well-run infrastructure migration looks like.

The visible effects will be modest and mostly indirect: slightly larger handshakes, occasionally slower first connections over poor mobile or satellite links, more frequent firmware updates, and some devices losing support earlier than owners expect because their hardware cannot be upgraded to support the new algorithms.

The practical advice is unglamorous. Keep software current - that genuinely is most of it. Expect shorter useful lifetimes for anything with a hardware root of trust. And treat consumer products marketed as "quantum-safe" with scepticism; there is very little a consumer can buy that addresses a risk not already being handled upstream.

The one real personal consideration is long-lived confidential data. Anything that must stay secret for fifteen years or more and is transmitted today could be recorded now and read later. That is a reason to care which services have migrated, not a reason to buy anything.

• NEC has reportedly ended quantum hardware development after nearly three decades of research
• Several NEC quantum researchers have reportedly moved to rival Fujitsu
• NEC once ranked first globally in semiconductor sales in 1990

NEC has reportedly stopped building physical quantum computers after roughly three decades of research into superconducting circuits and solid-state qubit technology.

The Japanese technology company is instead expected to concentrate on quantum applications while avoiding the costs associated with developing physical machines.

Several engineers connected to the initiative, including a senior research figure, subsequently moved across to rival firm Fujitsu to continue their work.

A legacy built on chip dominance

NEC once dominated the global chip industry, ranking first worldwide in semiconductor sales back in 1990, ahead of several rivals.

Companies such as Hitachi, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Motorola and Intel all trailed well behind NEC's chip business throughout that period.

Intel eventually surpassed NEC as personal computer processors grew into a massive and highly profitable segment of the global electronics market.

NEC's 1999 breakthrough in superconducting qubits emerged from a firm that possessed vast internal expertise in solid-state device engineering and manufacturing.

Its researchers produced the earliest known solid-state qubit, a milestone still referenced widely across the quantum computing field.

Variants of that early breakthrough now quietly underpin quantum processors currently built separately by both technology giants Google and IBM.

Unlike NEC, IBM remained committed to quantum hardware and grew into a leading global developer of quantum computing systems overall.

That contrast makes NEC's exit relatively rare among the original corporate pioneers of quantum computing hardware development.

A retreat that took nearly a decade

NEC did not exit the semiconductor business overnight; the retreat instead unfolded gradually across roughly a full decade of restructuring.

The company effectively abandoned its DRAM memory operations in 1999, folding them into a joint venture that was later renamed Elpida.

In November 2002, NEC spun off its remaining chip units, covering microcontrollers and system-on-chip devices, into an entirely new firm.

That entity was subsequently renamed NEC Electronics, eventually becoming the major chipmaker now known globally as Renesas Electronics.

NEC's current business portfolio now centers on IT services, enterprise systems, aerospace, defense, telecom infrastructure, AI and security work.

Quantum hardware development apparently did not fit naturally alongside that existing and increasingly diversified corporate business focus of the company today.

NEC has not formally described the move as a complete withdrawal from quantum computing research.

The company says it will keep assessing real-world uses and commercialization paths connected to quantum technology.

Quantum computing hardware remains a notably costly pursuit, and returns on investment can take many additional years to materialize fully.

Meanwhile, Fujitsu, working alongside research partner Riken, already launched a quantum computer built around 256 superconducting qubits last year.

The firm aims to build a system exceeding 1,000 qubits sometime within 2026, according to earlier public statements from company officials.

Longer term, Fujitsu has reportedly set a goal of building machines that carry over 10,000 superconducting qubits before fiscal 2030 arrives.

NEC's departure suggests that even firms with decades of deep expertise increasingly view quantum hardware as commercially unviable in the short term.

Via Diamond Online (originally in Japanese)

• G7 urges governments and organizations to begin transitioning to quantum‑resistant encryption
• Warning highlights risk from future quantum computers able to break current standards like AES
• Guidance: inventory cryptographic assets, prioritize critical systems, and adopt phased PQC strategies

The G7, a collection of some of the world’s most powerful economies, is urging organizations to adopt quantum-resistant encryption as soon as possible and minimize the risk of losing sensitive data to technologically advanced threat actors.

Virtually every industry in the world today relies on encryption (the process of converting readable data into scrambled, unreadable data so that only someone with the correct key can decode and access it) to protect sensitive information. Banks, telecommunications providers, defense organizations, and practically everyone else are using some form of encryption - most probably AES (Advanced Encryption Standard).

Decrypting the protected data without the encryption key is considered almost impossible, since the computational effort necessary to pull it off would simply be too large. However, since quantum computers work on a fundamentally different principle, it is believed that once they are mature enough, they will be able to “crack” today’s encryption standards.

G7's advice

Now, the G7 has urged government and organizations to remain ahead of the curve by deploying “quantum-resistant encryption”:

“To protect themselves from the threat brought by CRQCs (cryptographically relevant quantum computers), organizations should begin planning their PQC transition now and should aim to complete their transitions within any the timelines set out by their national cybersecurity authorities,” the warning reads.

“In addition to quantum-related risks, organizations that delay their PQC transition may lose competitive advantage or may be excluded from contracting opportunities, including public procurement.”

The G7 advises governments and organizations to take a number of steps, including identifying critical systems and prioritizing them. They should adopt a phased and risk-based strategy, start their transition early, and inventory their cryptographic assets. They should also map their dependencies and develop a transition plan.

“To limit transition-related costs, they should opt to purchase products that integrate PQC and replace their systems with quantum-safe ones as part of their standard renewal schedule. As such, starting the transition early could result in lower migration costs overall. Planning and conducting their PQC transition properly would enable organizations to prevent insecure implementations and avoid increased exposure to conventional cyber threats.”

One of the most exciting areas in technology is quantum computing, but it's also one of the areas that's been among the least accessible, difficult to relate to the real world, and still largely buried away in the lab. To reach the point at which quantum computers become useful, there's still plenty of work to be done.

The race to a million qubits

There are, and continue to be, different approaches to building quantum computers as well as all the components that power them. But the goal among all companies and institutions is the same: to build a machine that can outpace the fastest classical computer.

The cofounder and CEO of quantum computing company PsiQuantum, Jeremy O'Brien, was sharing his vision behind his organization, essentially saying that his team had attempted to work against a forged consensus.

Rather than scaling up qubits from a handful to 100 or 1,000, he said at the time that he was "fanatical" about getting to a million-plus qubits – the point at which experts expect there to be a meaningful performance leap.

New architectures and approaches

Intriguingly, O'Brien's comments came at a time when sheer scale and qubit count were the most sought-after elements in a quantum computer.

Since that point, so much research in the space has shifted not to the sheer size of the chips and how many qubits they can hold, but to building better qubits. Because quantum processors are so prone to failure, researchers have instead been trying to build processors with a few error-resistant qubits over millions of basic error-prone qubits.

The goal is still to achieve a quantum computer that can outpace classical machines, but experts expect that due to new breakthroughs, these quantum computers may need far fewer qubits than the millions we thought just a few years ago.

• IBM connects two box-shaped cryogenic modules into a single environment and cooled them below 15 millikelvin, linked by a thermally shielded tunnel carrying quantum cables between cells
• The cooling technology is established dilution refrigeration; what is new is an enclosure that offers up to twelve times more wiring area and lets modules sit side by side with shorter interconnects in tow
• IBM plans to install Nighthawk chips later this year, with a roadmap targeting 1,000 programmable qubits by 2027 and establishing fault tolerance in 2029

IBM has joined two cryogenic modules into a single environment at its Poughkeepsie facility and cooled the combined system to below 15 millikelvin, bringing it as close to absolute zero as possible.

The company said this was an important milestone on the road to IBM Quantum Starling, the fault-tolerant machine it intends to deliver in 2029.

IBM said the temperature is more than 180 times colder than deep space, and it is only part of the announcement, which furthers quantum computing considerably.

A story beyond temperature

Superconducting qubits need to sit a few thousandths of a degree above absolute zero, and a dilution refrigerator gets them there. To date, IBM has housed these inside tall cylindrical cryostats, one processor per can, an approach that dictates how every IBM Quantum System One in the field currently operates.

IBM has not replaced the refrigerator but rather modified the container: its new cryogenic cells are box-shaped, built from solid aluminum panels and framing, roughly three times the size of a kitchen fridge.

Their rectangular shape has an advantage: they can stand in a tight row rather than being spaced out as cylinders must be, and openings in the side walls let quantum cables run from one cell into the next. Multiple layers of thermal shielding wrap those cables to form what IBM calls a protected cryogenic tunnel, keeping the link between processors at operating temperature rather than forcing signals out through a warm gap and back down again.

IBM's achievement is demonstrating that it can run two previously independent cooling cells as one low-temperature environment, while offering 0.53 square meters of available wiring space and 2.75 cubic meters of vacuum chamber volume per cell.

IBM says this is up to twelve times more wiring room than its most widely used systems and addresses the constraint that has been quietly throttling superconducting quantum computers: every qubit you add needs control and readout lines running down into the cold, each line carries heat, and a cylinder runs out of cross-section long before one runs out of qubits.

Not only is IBM's new approach much more scalable than its previous ones, but it's goal here is different than what one would think at first glance given that It has already hit 1,000 qubits (its Condor processor already did so physically on a single chip in December 2023); its new approach is to have programmable qubits usable for computation across linked processors, a much different task than what IBM has already demonstrated.

Its 2027 target refers to qubits you can actually address and run a calculation on, spread across several chips linked together. That is a harder thing to deliver than a raw count, and IBM's roadmap, which also aims to have a fault-tolerant machine by 2029, is a reach by any measure, but one that is promising for a company that is at the forefront of quantum computing research and has just shown a bleeding-edge cooling enclosure to further its cause.

• ETH Zurich quantum chip sees superconducting qubit act as CPU and the vibrational modes of a fingernail-width acoustic resonator serve as quantum RAM
• The approach borrows from classical computer architecture as it completely flips the script on how modern quantum computing might store short-term data
• The team demonstrated a universal gate set and ran small instances of the quantum Fourier transform and period finding

A guitar string essentially stores a note based on how it vibrates, and if one plucks it differently, an entirely different note plays.

A team of researchers at ETH Zurich has leveraged the same principle to build a quantum chip that stores information by replacing the string with microscopic acoustic resonators.

This allows the chip to increase its working memory significantly, essentially increasing the storage capacity, a prohibitively expensive commodity in quantum computing, significantly.

A vibrations-based quantum storage play

ETH Zurich's research is led by quantum physicist Yiwen Chu, who used tiny mechanical vibrations to both store and process information. The vibrations, however, go far beyond the range of human hearing, happening inside a quantum chip where they essentially replace or complement the working memory of a quantum computer.

The study, published by the Hybrid Quantum Systems group, lists Professor Yiwen Chu, along with doctoral students Yu Yang and Igor Kladarić, as lead authors and focuses on replicating the division of labor seen in a classical computer.

A superconducting transmon qubit serves as the CPU, while the working memory (the quantum equivalent of RAM) is a high-overtone bulk acoustic wave resonator, or HBAR, whose many vibrational modes each serve as a memory slot.

The Qubit essentially swaps a quantum state from a vibrational mode (reads it, in classical computer terms), manipulates it (modifies it), and swaps it back (writes it). This makes for a unique configuration that most modern quantum computers do not follow, in which processing and storage are two distinct segments; most designs treat both memory and compute similarly.

The approach has advantages, however: acoustic waves have wavelengths roughly a hundred thousand times shorter than electromagnetic ones, allowing an entire quantum chip to be extremely small, as the research team states, even if the actual computer will be many orders of magnitude larger.

The chip has passed stress tests, including a proof of feasibility, which also included testing using two of the most commonly used methods to benchmark a quantum computer: the quantum Fourier transform and a period-finding algorithm.

The endgame here, as noted by the research team, is quantum random-access memory (QRAM), which would allow modern quantum computers to access a much larger store of quantum memory than current specifications allow. Whether this pans out depends on both the scalability of the approach and the computational power in play.

• Quantum readiness is moving from research projects into deployment schedules
• The 2029 deadline signals growing urgency across enterprise security planning
• Crypto agility could become as important as encryption strength itself

Quantum computing timelines, once treated as distant concerns, are increasingly influencing security planning across major technology companies worldwide.

Microsoft has revealed it is now accelerating its Quantum Safe Program, arguing that preparations for post-quantum cryptography can no longer wait indefinitely.

The company says organizations should begin preparations immediately because the migration process could require several years across large infrastructures.

Microsoft moves quantum preparations into its wider security strategy

The company plans to complete the transition of critical offerings to post-quantum cryptography technologies before the end of 2029.

Microsoft also confirmed that quantum readiness metrics will become part of its broader Secure Future Initiative security programme moving forward.

Rather than concentrating exclusively on replacing cryptographic algorithms, the company believes infrastructure modernization should receive greater attention from organizations globally.

Microsoft argued that improving flexibility within existing systems could reduce the complexity associated with future cryptographic transitions considerably over time.

One priority involves upgrading network cryptography through newer standards such as TLS 1.3 and hybrid key exchange technology adoption.

Another objective involves developing crypto agility capabilities allowing cryptographic mechanisms to change without requiring extensive application redesign work later.

The company also intends to modernize trust chains supporting certificate issuance, software updates, code signing, and hardware-backed protections.

Microsoft has not identified a single scientific breakthrough responsible for changing its timeline regarding quantum-resistant security implementation activities worldwide.

Instead, executives described the decision as a precautionary exercise intended to reduce exposure to future developments within quantum computing research.

Microsoft warns preparation could take longer than expected

"Shifting to quantum-resistant security takes years. This is a proactive, risk-informed decision to help customers stay ahead of potential future threats," Microsoft Azure CTO Mark Russinovich said.

He added that the initiative covers the entire Microsoft portfolio rather than a narrow collection of selected enterprise services only.

The company also referenced growing concerns surrounding harvest now, decrypt later scenarios involving sensitive information collected and retained today.

Under that model, encrypted information stolen presently could remain inaccessible until future quantum systems become capable of decoding archives successfully.

Several technology companies, including Apple, Google, and Signal, have already incorporated elements of post-quantum cryptography into products recently.

Microsoft believes the amount of work required before deployment at scale remains substantial regardless of when capable machines eventually emerge.

The company stated that advances in research and development have already altered previous assumptions surrounding the acceptable preparation timetable significantly.

For years, planning for post-quantum cryptography was widely treated as important and inevitable while remaining comfortably distant for organizations.

Microsoft now argues that perspective is changing as technology advances and preparations begin reflecting the scale of the transition ahead.

The company believes cryptographically relevant quantum computers could arrive sooner than many previous forecasts had anticipated across the technology sector.

Whether these expectations ultimately prove accurate, organizations appear increasingly unwilling to rely on the assumption that they remain decades away.

Via BleepingComputer

• Trump wants to have scientifically relevant quantum computers as soon as 2028
• PQC migration pilot must have been completed by the end of 2027
• Quantum promises to prevent attacks and aid discovery simultaneously

US President Donald Trump has signed two executive orders to push the US forward in quantum tech in a bid to prepare government systems against future cybersecurity risks.

The first EO is to establish a coordinated national effort to "develop the first ever quantum computer powerful enough to initiate the era of quantum-enabled scientific discovery and accelerate quantum capabilities for commercial applications."

The Departments of Energy, War, Commerce, and the Intelligence Community, industry and research leaders are all set to be involved as the country seeks to press on with its quantum plans.

Trump signs executive order to accelerate quantum computing plans

Among the benefits Trump envisions coming from future quantum computers are a number of spatial awareness improvements, including navigation through military environments, detecting submarines, underground structures and other hidden infrastructure, and improving battlefield awareness.

Trump's second EO focuses on the nationwide "nationwide migration to post-quantum cryptography," coordinated between the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the National Cyber Director.

The White House warned that quantum developments threaten the security of government networks, banks, healthcare, military systems and other critical infrastructure, ordering a pilot scheme to have been completed by the end of 2027. Some of the earliest migrations are set to have happened by 2030-2031, the administration added.

Quantum also promises some positive impacts spanning manufacturing, drug discovery, energy and agriculture, with the President seeing earlier investment in quantum giving the nation a competitive advantage.

But in as little as two years and before PQC rollout, the administration hopes to achieve scientifically relevant quantum computing, targeting 2028.

Co-founded by Reed Hastings in 1997, Netflix started life as a rental DVD service in the mold of Blockbuster. But, 20 years later, the company dramatically pivoted to being an online streaming service, fully embracing the internet era.

Changing with the times

Five years after launching Netflix's streaming platform, Hastings was speaking with Forbes on the business' pivot and its role in the emerging internet landscape.

This shift, according to reports, was decades in the making, with Hastings plotting it since Netflix's inception, with the DVD rental business a means to grow the customer base.

His comments highlight the belief that our society is entering a new age defined by the internet and the shift of many businesses from bricks and mortar to an online ecosystem. The comments also frame the new "age" of humanity as transcending the reliance on a particular material – instead basing progress on the shift to the internet.

The new age

This notion is hardly original – plenty of figures in the tech industry have suggested we are graduating to a new age of humanity defined by an idea or material.

For example, physicist Michio Kaku identified several ages in the last few hundred years, including the Steam Age, Age of Electricity, and the Silicon Age that began in the late 20th century and lasted until just recently.

And now? With the constraints of Moore's Law imposing physical limits on computation, he suggested a new age of humanity could belong to quantum – with the embryonic technology of quantum computing allowing us to transcend conventional power constraints. Others, meanwhile, attribute a new age of humanity to AI.

• Quantum computing is threatening today’s encryption standards faster than expected
• Google and Cloudflare accelerate PQC migration targets to 2029
• Organizations should prioritize PQC spending alongside AI

Credit rating giant Moody's Ratings has warned that organizations could be underestimating just how quickly quantum computing could threaten current encryption standards, to the point that slow post-quantum cryptography adoption could even post a credit risk.

And industry giants are already starting to recognize this, with Google and Cloudflare having moved their targets to 2029 – a seriously big shift compared with the 2035 US government target for national security systems.

With these changes showing that some of the world’s most sophisticated internet infrastructure companies are worried about the speed of change, Moody’s argues that companies may no longer have the decade or more they thought to upgrade.

Strategic investment will secure systems before PQC is a major risk

Currently, most internet security depends on public-key cryptography. This includes online banking, payment platforms, digital identities, VPNs and secure government systems.

However, quantum computers threaten this because algorithms like Shor’s Algorithm could theoretically solve problems much, much faster than classic computers, essentially breaking down the cryptography and enabling access for attackers.

Until recently, we thought that millions of qubits would be needed before quantum systems were able to break current encryption standards, but it’s been revealed that around 10,000 qubits are sufficient to execute Shor’s Algorithm against today’s encryption standards.

Beyond that, around 26,000 qubits could potentially break P-256 – a standardized elliptic curve algorithm used commonly in financial services and government systems.

The report references Google Quantum AI research, which points toward a 20-fold decrease in the computing resources required to break secure elliptic curve cryptography compared with previous estimates.

In March 2026, Google announced it would be accelerating its PQC migration target to 2029. Cloudflare followed suit in April, reflecting that 2029 target. “This indicates that two of the world's most technically sophisticated operators of internet infrastructure have separately concluded that their existing planning horizon is no longer adequate,” the company noted.

Why PQC spend is just as important as investing in AI

With AI budgets dominating IT spend, Moody’s is now suggesting that PQC spend could compete with existing AI and IT budgets, but only if companies fully understand the risks. That’s because AI investments offer revenue growth opportunities and productivity improvements, but PQC migration doesn’t unlock any extra revenue or show tangible benefits to customers.

Getting in on the action early could actually be the smarter move, though. The company predicts that PQC migration could account for 2.5% of annual IT budgets now, but those who delay until 2030 could spend twice as much trying to catch up.

Alarmingly, Moody’s warns of a ‘harvest now, decrypt later’ threat. Attackers can steal encrypted data now, archive them, and wait for future quantum systems to become capable of decrypting the information.

As for costs, the White House previously estimated that migrating federal systems could cost around $7.1 billion over 10 years.

The secondary problem, the report warns, is that hyperscalers would need to adjust their infrastructure strategies to adapt. While a current cryptographic connection requires around 64 bytes, hybrid PQC connections require around 1,568 bytes – a 24x increase in the volume of data being transmitted.

As a result, the likes of Google, Cloudflare and others will need to continue to build out AI infrastructure while also upgrading infrastructure for post-quantum cryptography.

While the immediate, transformative potential of AI investment is undeniable, this shift serves as a reminder not to ignore the threat quantum computing poses to current cryptography.

• Army-funded researchers explore quantum vibrations as future control mechanisms.
• Vibronic effects may influence future quantum communication technologies.
• Energy losses in materials drive interest in quantum control.

The US Army has invested in quantum research exploring how vibrations influence electronic behavior in ultrathin materials.

Scientists at the University of California, Riverside, are examining whether these vibronic effects could eventually transform both energy harvesting and computational systems.

The Center for Quantum Vibronics in Energy and Time (QuVET) brings together physicists, chemists, engineers, and biochemists to study these fundamental interactions across biological and synthetic systems.

Vibrations become a control mechanism for quantum behaviour

Unlike conventional computing that relies on binary states, quantum approaches exploit phenomena such as superposition, where a wave function exists in multiple places simultaneously.

QuVET researchers want to determine whether a quantum wave function jumps across an interface or stays where it originally resides.

"The idea is that vibrations may become the control knob, enabling future 'quantum vibronic switches' that use crystal vibrations to turn quantum transitions on and off," said Nathaniel Gabor, a professor of physics and astronomy.

Understanding this switching process is essential for improving technologies like solar power generation, where light creates neutral excitations that must separate into free charges.

If that energy does not get extracted fast enough, it dissipates as heat or gets re-emitted as light instead of becoming usable electricity.

Gabor noted that biological systems have evolved methods to pull energy out extremely quickly, and his team aims to replicate that efficiency in artificial materials.

In photosynthesis, a charge-neutral quantum excitation moves from molecule to molecule until reaching a reaction center, where separation occurs.

The same physics that enables plants to harvest sunlight could eventually enable new forms of quantum control and computation in synthetic layered devices.

Army sees strategic value in quantum control research

The US Army has funded this quantum research through a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative grant administered by its Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Office.

Tania Paskova, a program manager at that office, stated that understanding vibronic effects could prove instrumental for future artificial biological systems designed by military scientists.

“This research is answering critical scientific questions that could become instrumental in understanding and controlling vibronic effects in artificial biological systems,” she said.

“By establishing roadmaps for using vibronic effects for novel quantum photonic and optoelectronic devices, this research has the potential to significantly advance future Army capabilities in quantum computing, secure communications, and sensing technologies.”

The Army acknowledges, however, that substantial hurdles remain before any practical military application emerges from these laboratory findings.

Most quantum experiments demand cryogenic temperatures and highly controlled conditions that do not translate easily to battlefield environments.

By funding basic research rather than demanding immediate prototypes, the Army is making a long-term strategic bet on physics that could take decades to mature.

Whether this investment yields genuine quantum computing advances or merely interesting scientific footnotes depends entirely on experimental results that do not yet exist.

The quantum computing race has started to heat up in recent years as big tech companies and university research teams (often in collaboration) have embarked on refining the weird and wonderful technology of quantum computing. Google, like IBM, Amazon, and other entities, is at the heart of this.

The impact of technology

Five years ago, AI was still a term we used to describe simple machine learning functions and neural network-based research projects. Now, it's used to describe a wave of technologies that are reshaping society.

Sundar Pichai, whose own company oversees a sophisticated and promising quantum computing roadmap, spoke of the overall quantum journey the industry is undertaking in an interview with the BBC late last year.

The role of AI in work, socializing, and creativity, among other areas, is profound. Many expect quantum's incredible processing capabilities to transform many areas of life, although many of these use cases are consigned to research and scientific endeavors.

Roadmapping quantum computing's ascendency

The holy grail in the roadmap that many legacy tech companies and newfangled startups born out of college labs are chasing is a fully fault-tolerant quantum computer that can outpace the fastest supercomputers in useful, real-world calculations.

It's not enough for the machine to simply be packed with as many qubits as possible, because they're far more error-prone than regular computing bits. Without proper error correction measures (which scientists are busy investigating), calculations cannot sustain momentum and fall apart before they can be useful.

In December 2024, Google became the first company to achieve "below threshold" error correction, meaning (in theory) the more qubits you add to a system, the more errors are removed – not added as they are now. With so many industry players making comparable breakthroughs today, it doesn't mean Google will be the first to give quantum computing its 'ChatGPT' moment within, say, five years.

• Equal1 and Dell's RacQ is the world’s first rack-mounted quantum computer for enterprise use
• It operates from a standard single-phase 1.6kW wall socket
• The system uses a built-in close-cycle cryocooler, eliminating the need for external cryogenic plumbing

Equal1 and Dell have come together to launch what they are calling, “the world’s first deployable silicon-spin hybrid quantum-classical computer,” built specifically to fit within the existing data center form factor.

Announced at Dell Technologies World 2026, the new prototype will fit inside a standard 19-inch data center rack, which means existing infrastructure wouldn’t have to be upgraded to accommodate future deployments.

Equal1 is framing the news as a major development whereby quantum computers will be suitable for enterprise deployment, beyond current research lab limitations.

A quantum computer which will fit where your classical computers already are

The entire solution is designed to meet enterprises where they are, with the rack units they already have, a standard power delivery and conventional networking architecture. For example, Equal1’s RacQ can be plugged into a standard single-phase 1.6kW wall socket and operate without external cryogenic plumbing.

The company says the 1,600W power consumption roughly resembles that of a high-end classical compute server or GPU-heavy enterprise system.

It also uses an integrated close-cycle cryocooler designed to maintain an internal operating temperature of 0.3 Kelvin (-459 degrees Fahrenheit), so the type of dilution refrigerator required by today’s quantum computers would not be necessary.

Powering RacQ is UnityQ, a quantum system-on-chip that uses standard semiconductor processes, which means scaling manufacturing might not be as much of a challenge.

Dell sees itself as a partner for future quantum deployments

As for where Dell fits into the equation, RacQ fits within a standard Dell VR3300 42U rack and weighs around 400kg.

“We are putting quantum inside the rack so customers can roll it in, plug it in and begin running hybrid quantum–classical workloads in days, using the infrastructure they already own,” CEO Jason Lynch wrote.

On the ground at Dell Technologies World, the experimental prototype combines a silicone quantum computer with a Dell PowerEdge R770 server, a PowerSwitch networking environment and Dell’s Quantum Intelligent Orchestrator.

With this new work in progress, Equal1’s model clearly positions RacQ as a co-processor for specific workloads. Classical systems will remain relevant, but quantum systems can handle targeted computational workloads, essentially mirroring how GPUs have accelerated AI workloads rather than replacing CPUs outright.

“Classical and quantum workloads operate as a single system,” the company wrote in a press release.

The partnership is not so much of a surprise, with Dell defining its role in quantum computing as an infrastructure layer and a systems integration partner for future hybrid computing environments.

“We're actively working to ensure quantum technologies can be seamlessly integrated into existing computing ecosystems,” Dell Quantum Infrastructure Lead Burns Healy shared during CES 2026.

• IMEC's breakthrough solves one of quantum computing's biggest issues: scalability
• The approach leverages existing bleeding-edge lithography used for classic computer chips
• The research hub hopes to recreate this with potentially millions of qubits on a single chip

Investors and professionals across the world are currently obsessed with how far the capabilities of modern AI systems will evolve over time, as tasks become increasingly complex even as agentic AI grows significantly faster, learning from a mix of user feedback, training data, and larger context windows.

Many of these computing breakthroughs are possible thanks to Nvidia’s AI chips and CUDA software stack, which are recognized as the industry gold standard. The same manufacturing process (High NA EUV Lithography) that makes these viable has been leveraged by the semiconductor research hub IMEC to build what could be the world’s first scalable quantum dot qubit device.

IMEC has now reported the successful fabrication of a functioning network of qubits with separations of just 6 nanometers, a crucial breakthrough given that the coupling strength between neighboring quantum dots increases exponentially with decreasing distance, making this otherwise a challenging feat.

An important breakthrough for scaling in quantum computing

These exciting breakthroughs could be a stepping stone for an industry often plagued by scalability issues, even as they demonstrate compatibility with existing CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) technology that powers modern silicon chips.

“High NA EUV enables the precise patterning of silicon quantum dot qubits," noted program director of Quantum Computing at IMEC, Kristiaan De Greve.

"As the coupling strength between neighboring quantum dots increases exponentially with the gap between them, we need to reliably pattern gaps of a few nanometers between the control electrodes of the quantum dots. This is a true engineering feat, thanks to our integration and patterning teams and ASML's outstanding high NA EUV technology.”

While considerable research and development are still needed to scale this and, perhaps one day, to have commercially viable quantum computers that work in sync with classic computer chips on the same die, this is an important proof of concept that shows it is possible.

Quantum computing, however, has its own challenges, and while the underlying tech in play here, leveraging Silicon Spin Qubits, has its advantages, it also tends to be demanding in its implementation. It requires extreme cooling, is sensitive to material defects, and is prone to failure when meeting modern error-correction thresholds, as IMEC has previously noted.

The development does have industry players excited about the prospect of future chips that could incorporate millions of qubits on a single chip, with Sofie Beyne, the project leader and quantum integration engineer at IMEC, summing it up best:

“We can leverage decades of semiconductor innovation and reuse the entire ecosystem of silicon scaling, moving quantum devices beyond lab experiments to large-scale, manufacturable systems. This is where silicon-based qubits have a clear advantage.”

Although World Quantum Day has now passed, it remains a valuable moment to pause and reflect on recent developments and shifting market dynamics.

In just the past few months, we have seen several SPAC announcements, advancements in error-correction theory, use-case demonstrations, and announcements of new government programs.

What all of these points have in common is a stronger conviction that quantum advantage is approaching faster than we think. This means we, as a whole industry, need to get ready for enterprise adoption and scaling up business models.

Developing technology

Overall, the sector has developed the technology, production capabilities, and business models to support a growing demand for quantum computers. In these early days of the industry, true ownership and ecosystem models will be the key driver towards quantum advantage.

This is why the choices being made right now, by institutions, by governments, and by companies like ours, will determine whether quantum computing fulfills its actual potential or just produces more years of impressive demonstrations.

Every transformative technology goes through the same challenging middle phase. The technology works in science labs. The papers are impressive. The product roadmap look credible. But the gap between what is demonstrated and what is deployed stays wide open.

We have been in that phase with quantum computing for some years. And the honest reason it persists is not only the hardware or the algorithms. The hardware is improving and the algorithms are getting more efficient. A strong reason is that the industry has not yet agreed on what it means for quantum advantage to actually arrive.

We have been too focused on qubit count, fidelities, and connectivity and ignored main questions like adoption models, ownership, and deployment. If customers want to solve real-world problems, they must be able to integrate the new technology into their existing workflows and technology stacks.

This is more important than achieving a certain qubit milestone. But not each business model allows you to fully integrate a new technology into your workflow.

The solution is not only the technology. It is the model.

Cloud access

A widely used commercial model in quantum computing today is cloud services access. You pay to run jobs on hardware you do not own, accessed remotely, at a cost that scales with usage. This model serves a real purpose, enabling experimentation, algorithm testing, and early adoption without capital commitment. That is genuinely valuable and we support it because it lowers the entry barrier for early quantum adoption. It is also essential for quantum education, a topic that is close to my heart.

But cloud access is an entry point, not a destination. And this is not just an argument about where quantum computing is today. It is an argument about where it is going. Even as the technology matures, even as fault-tolerant systems arrive, most serious institutions will want to run their most sensitive and strategically important workloads on IT infrastructure they control themselves. Intellectual property, data security, regulatory compliance, sovereign capability: these considerations do not disappear as the hardware gets better. If anything, they become more pressing as quantum becomes more powerful.

Think about how the internet scaled. The protocols that built it, TCP/IP most importantly, were open standards. Not proprietary. Not controlled by any single vendor. That openness created the conditions for an ecosystem where anyone could build on top of it and no single company could capture all the value or determine who was allowed to participate. The internet did not succeed because one company rented access to the network. It succeeded because the network became infrastructure that institutions could own, operate, and build upon independently.

Quantum computing is approaching the same fork in the road. The question being decided right now, in procurement decisions at national labs, supercomputing centers, and, most importantly, enterprise customers, is whether quantum follows the internet model or a different one entirely.

Who pays the price for slow adoption? Everyone!

The importance of ownership

When institutions stay only with cloud access and never move to ownership, several things will not happen: They do not build internal expertise. They do not develop the operational capability to run workloads at low latency. They do not generate the feedback loop between hardware and application that drives real progress. And they remain dependent on a vendor's uptime, pricing, and continued interest in serving them.

The result is that quantum adoption looks wide but runs shallow. Many organizations have run experiments. Very few have built capabilities. And the cost of that gap is not abstract. Drug discovery timelines stay longer than they need to be. Supply chain optimization remains approximate rather than precise. Energy grid modeling stays computationally limited at exactly the moment when the energy transition demands more from it. These are not future problems. They are present ones, and quantum computing is one of the most credible tools we have for addressing them at scale. Every year that adoption stalls is a year those problems compound.

This pattern is known well from other deep tech cycles. Early industrial computing ran on time-sharing models. You booked time on a mainframe you did not own. It worked, until organizations realized that owning compute gave them fundamentally different capabilities: control over their data, ability to customize, and the compounding advantage of building institutional knowledge over time. The transition from time-sharing to owned infrastructure was not just a procurement decision. It was what made computing a real industry.

We believe quantum is at that inflection point.

Own the machine. Own the outcome. Build an ecosystem.

We believe in building full-stack, quantum computers for supercomputing environments. On-premises quantum systems, where the hardware sits in the customer’s facility, runs on their infrastructure, and operates under their control, enable quantum computing to become a permanent, operational part of an institution’s technical capability. We call this Production Quantum. Because it reflects not a remote service you subscribe to, but infrastructure you command, with the security, latency, and sovereign control that serious institutions require, today and long after the technology reaches its full potential.

Full-stack matters here. Customers need one partner, with one accountability structure, one support relationship, and one roadmap conversation.

Vertical integration also means supply chain resilience. Quantum hardware depends on specialized components, specialized fabrication processes, and materials that are not widely available. Companies that rely on external chip suppliers inherit that supplier's bottlenecks, lead times, and strategic priorities. This means chip fabrication ownership is important too. It gives customers a more predictable path to delivery, upgrade, and long-term system evolution, which matters enormously when they are building a capability rather than running an experiment.

What’s also important is co-designing systems with customers from the beginning, aligning the hardware architecture with the actual workloads they need to run. These systems empower customers to build their own solutions and ecosystems around them.

A rising tide lifts all boats. We intend to be the tide.

The second thing we believe, just as strongly, is that no single company can build the quantum industry alone. The question is whether the companies at the center of the field act like platforms or gatekeepers. We have made a clear choice to provide platforms and enable ecosystems around us and around our customers.

We believe the quantum ecosystem grows faster when its foundations are shared, and that a broader ecosystem ultimately creates more demand for what we build, not less. The evidence supports this. In Finland, the quantum ecosystem grew from one company in 2018 to eleven by 2024. External funding attached to the ecosystem grew from zero to hundreds of millions of dollars over the same period.

In Bavaria, a similar pattern has emerged: more companies, more employees, more capital, more activity than in comparable regions where quantum development has stayed more closed. On-premises quantum systems act as seeds. They attract software developers, algorithm researchers, and application companies. They train the engineers the industry needs. They create the feedback loops that accelerate hardware development.

Open standards and tooling amplify adoption by enabling hands-on use, capability building, and full control over quantum infrastructure. This is how quantum computing moves from specialized research to general-purpose industrial capability.

What this means for humanity, not just the industry

I am a physicist. I came to entrepreneurship through science, not through business school. And I think my scientific background shapes how I look at what we are building and why it matters beyond the commercial case.

There are problems that classical computers will never solve. Not because we have not tried hard enough, but because the computational complexity of certain problems scales in ways that make them structurally intractable on classical hardware.

Molecular simulation for drug discovery. Optimization at industrial scale in logistics, energy, and finance. Materials design for next-generation batteries and semiconductors. These are problems where meaningful progress could reduce human suffering, lower the cost of energy, and accelerate scientific discovery in ways that compound over decades.

Quantum computing is the most credible path to making those problems tractable. The mathematics is clear. What remains hard is the engineering, the deployment, and the ecosystem development required to turn that mathematical potential into operational reality. Production Quantum is not just the right commercial strategy. It is also the model most likely to produce the breadth of deployment that makes those broader applications possible.

There is also a talent dimension that does not get enough attention. There is a shortage of quantum physicists and engineers today. Real hardware in institutions is what educates the next generation. You cannot build a quantum workforce on cloud access alone. You need systems in labs, in universities, in national facilities, operated by people who develop genuine hands-on expertise. Every system we deliver is, in that sense, also an investment in the human capital the field needs to fulfill its potential.

What we have built. What comes next.

Quantum hardware is still technically fragile. The road to fault-tolerant systems at scale is long. I have no interest in pretending otherwise.

But I am confident in the direction. The quantum era does not begin when the technology works perfectly in a lab. It begins when institutions own it, operate it, and build on it. That is what production quantum means, and that is the progress worth measuring.

Want to learn more about quantum computing? We've listed the best online courses and online class sites.

This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro Perspectives, our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.

The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/pro/perspectives-how-to-submit

• Quantum photon source works directly inside existing telecom fiber wavelength ranges
• New quantum dots create identical single photons suitable for secure communication systems
• Compatibility with silicon chips opens path toward scalable quantum networking

European researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute say they have solved a long-standing physics barrier that blocked quantum networking over traditional fiber systems.

Their work centers on producing perfectly controlled single photons that travel through the same optical cables already used across modern telecommunications networks.

The team created quantum dots that release exactly one photon at a time when triggered by a laser pulse. That controlled emission allows quantum information to move through fiber lines without duplication, which is required for secure quantum communication systems.

Overcoming a noisy problem

Earlier quantum dot designs produced reliable single photons, but those appeared at wavelengths around 930nm that did not match telecom infrastructure.

Standard fiber networks operate at longer wavelengths starting near 1260nm, leaving researchers stuck with signals that struggled to travel useful distances outside laboratory environments.

That mismatch was overcome by engineering quantum dots that emit photons directly around 1300nm, placing them inside the same wavelength band used in global fiber networks.

That removes the need for complex frequency conversion hardware that previously added noise and slowed development.

Noise remained one of the most stubborn problems because identical photons need to be produced repeatedly without variation between emissions.

“Noisy in this context means that you couldn’t generate one photon after another with the same properties. The photons need to be perfectly identical, and achieving this level of quantum coherence in the telecom band has proven extremely challenging,” said Niels Bohr researcher Leonardo Midolo.

The tiny structures behind this advance contain roughly 30,000 atoms and measure about 5.2nm tall and 20nm wide, behaving like artificial atoms under laser stimulation.

After excitation, the trapped electron releases exactly one photon, producing a repeatable quantum signal suited for communication and computation tasks.

Fabrication of these devices depends on highly controlled chip manufacturing techniques that shape materials into nanoscale photonic circuits.

“At the Niels Bohr Institute, we then use advanced nanofabrication in our cleanroom to pattern these materials into quantum photonic circuits,” said Marcus Albrechtsen, joint first author of the study.

“We fabricate nanochips and probe them with lasers at low temperatures to confirm they emit highly coherent single photons.”

Compatibility with silicon photonic chips adds a big practical advantage because silicon already dominates large-scale optical hardware manufacturing worldwide.

Operating directly at telecom wavelengths allows these quantum emitters to integrate into existing chip platforms without rebuilding entire production pipelines from scratch.

Researchers still face big engineering challenges however, as scaling laboratory prototypes into continent-spanning quantum networks requires reliable repeaters and long-distance signal handling hardware.

Even so, the signs are good. “It opens up a lot of possibilities, possibilities that were long considered out of reach,” said Midolo.

Cryptography works because it is assumed that it is too computationally and economically expensive to be practical. That assumption sits underneath TLS, certificates, signed software, VPN services, and identity systems across enterprise networks.

When that cost drops far enough, the protection stops holding. That is why two recent back-to-back papers from researchers at Google and Caltech on quantum computing matters to security and business leaders everywhere.

These recent research articles suggest that the resources required to break traditional cryptography used on the internet and with cryptocurrencies may now be materially lower than earlier estimates.

Many conflicting factors still exist: The exact timeline is still uncertain, there is still a large gap between research papers and real-world capability, and further advancements are not guaranteed.

Thus far, however, the trend has only been moving toward increasing acceleration in the capability of quantum computers and the risk that they present to internet security.

Many articles have already been written about these recent announcements, but after spending many years educating organizations and deploying these algorithms in enterprise environments, there are two very salient points I would encourage leaders to pay attention to today.

Issues of practicality

The first is that the question of the practicality of quantum-enabled attacks has largely been settled. Many leaders have now heard of specialized attacks (such as harvest-now-decrypt-later or trust-now-forge-later) that may be enabled by a sufficiently powerful quantum computer, but much skepticism still exists about the ability to actually execute these in practice.

These new papers show that the possibility of a quantum-enabled attack can no longer be ignored. In fact, it is now increasing to the level of organizational policy at places such as Google, where they have moved up their quantum-secure transition timelines to 2029 with other major players and verticals to follow suit.

Execution risk

The second is execution risk. Most organizations still talk about post-quantum migration as though it were a normal upgrade cycle. It is not. Cryptography is buried in more places than most teams realize – including TLS stacks, VPNs, PKI, software signing, SSH, identity management, embedded systems, partner integrations, and vendor products that may or may not have a roadmap.

That is where the problem becomes concrete. Even though NIST standardized quantum-resistant algorithms in 2024, the problem of how to actually deploy and use these algorithms (in particular with the heterogeneity and scale of an enterprise) is still an open question.

The EU and US have each laid out roadmaps with the first deadlines coming into effect at the end of this year. At this point, the blocker is not whether the industry knows where to go. The blocker is whether organizations can actually get there in time.

The usual migration plan

The usual migration plan sounds reasonable on paper: Inventory the environment, find dependencies, work with vendors, test, validate, and roll out in phases. In a large enterprise, that process can take years.

A complete cryptographic inventory alone can be a major program. After that come procurement cycles, lab testing, maintenance management windows, change control, and deployment across environments that were never designed for algorithm agility.

That is why waiting for a perfect migration plan is risky. A lot of teams are assuming they will get to full visibility first, then protection later. In practice, that sequence may prove to be too slow.

What organizations need now is a practical way to start to spend down tech debt and reduce exposure while the longer migration continues. That starts with continuous visibility. If you do not know where vulnerable cryptography is deployed, you cannot scope the problem, prioritize it, or measure progress.

It also requires creative ways to become more agile in managing cryptography (so called “crypto-agility”). If every algorithm change turns into an application rewrite, a hardware refresh, or a long vendor cycle, your timeline likely already extends well into 2030 or even later.

This also means dealing with real environments as they exist today, not as they would look in a clean-sheet architecture. Most teams are working across heterogeneous IT infrastructure, legacy systems, third-party dependencies, and operational constraints that make a clean transition unrealistic in the near term.

Questions worth asking now

If you are leading this internally, there are a few questions worth asking right away.

1. Do you actually have full cryptographic visibility, beyond a certificate inventory? You need to know where vulnerable RSA and ECC (or even older) algorithms show up across transport security, authentication, signing, firmware, and third-party integrations.

2. Are your systems genuinely crypto-agile? Or does changing a primitive, protocol, or algorithm still require code changes, vendor intervention, and a long validation cycle every time?

3. And how does your migration plan compare to the timeline you are actually operating against? Whether the driver is CNSA 2.0, customer requirements, or internal risk management, the answer should be grounded in execution time, not optimism.

The biggest mistake right now is assuming there is still plenty of time because a cryptographically relevant quantum computer is not sitting in production yet.

Enterprise transitions of this size almost always take longer than expected and often times organizational leaders find that their teams and infrastructure are less prepared than they had hoped.

In short, these new papers now make it clear that post-quantum readiness is now a near-term execution issue. The organizations that handle it well will be the ones that start actively budgeting for and reducing exposure this year.

We've ranked the best encryption software.

This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro Perspectives, our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.

The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/pro/perspectives-how-to-submit

• Tiny optical chip steers millions of laser points from microscopic cantilever array
• MITRE-led research shows new path to scaling quantum computing laser control
• Microscopic beam steering technology could reduce complexity in large optical systems

Quantum computing designs built around laser-controlled qubits run into trouble as systems grow larger. Many approaches rely on separate lasers to control individual qubits, which becomes difficult once systems scale into the millions often cited as necessary for practical use.

Scientists working on the MITRE Quantum Moonshot project have created a microscopic optical chip capable of steering tens of millions of beams of light every second, tackling that challenge.

Instead of relying on one laser per task, the approach allows a smaller number of beams to be redirected rapidly across many targets.

MITRE Quantum Moonshot

The MITRE Quantum Moonshot project brings together researchers from MITRE, MIT, the University of Colorado Boulder, and Sandia National Laboratories. Their shared goal is to build scalable quantum systems that combine light-based control with solid-state materials to manage large numbers of quantum bits.

According to IEEE Spectrum, the microscopic optical chip can project 68.6 million scannable points of light every second. That's more than 50 times greater than earlier micromirror-based beam scanners, helping address one of the biggest practical barriers to scaling quantum hardware.

The device measures about 1 square millimeter, roughly the size of a grain of salt, and contains an array of microscopic cantilevers that act like tiny ramps for light. Electrical voltage moves each cantilever slightly, guiding beams across a two-dimensional surface with precise control.

Light travels through narrow pathways called waveguides and exits at the tip of each cantilever. A thin layer of aluminum nitride inside the structure expands or contracts under voltage, allowing the tiny mechanical parts to move and scan beams across the target area.

“We have now made a scannable pixel that is at the absolute limit of what diffraction allows,” says Henry Wen, a visiting researcher at MIT and photonics engineer at QuEra Computing.

IEEE Spectrum reports that the team demonstrated the chip’s capabilities by projecting detailed images at microscopic scale. One demonstration reproduced the Mona Lisa (see below) inside an area smaller than two human egg cells.

Synchronizing motion across thousands of tiny structures turned out to be harder than building the hardware itself.

Researchers had to carefully align the timing of mechanical movement and light output so that colors and patterns appeared in the correct sequence.

Beyond quantum computing, the same scanning approach could speed up laser-based manufacturing processes such as 3D printing. The technology could also extend into imaging and high-performance computing.

“I think now you can take a process that would have taken hours and maybe bring it down to minutes,” says Wen.

Researchers are also exploring new cantilever shapes that curl into spirals rather than simple arcs. These variations could support lab-on-a-chip systems used in biology, where scanning light across cells helps trigger or measure chemical responses.

The same underlying ability to direct many beams from a single compact device is what makes the technology relevant beyond laboratory settings.

Although the technology remains experimental, its ability to direct large numbers of beams from a tiny surface points to possible cost savings in large computing systems.

Systems that currently require large numbers of lasers and supporting hardware could be simplified, reducing equipment, power demands, and long-term operating costs.

If future computing systems rely more heavily on optical technologies, reducing the number of required light sources could lower infrastructure costs.

At the scale of modern data centers, even modest reductions in hardware and energy use could translate into very big financial savings.

• Complete Hepatitis D genome encoded into quantum processor as proof-of-concept milestone
• Researchers target future 100x speedups for complex human pangenome analysis tasks
• Scientists caution practical quantum genomics still faces scaling and hardware limitations

Scientists have loaded a complete genome onto a quantum computer for the first time, taking an early step toward tackling biological problems that easily overwhelm traditional systems.

In time for World Quantum Day, teams from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Melbourne encoded the full Hepatitis D virus genome into quantum hardware.

The Hep D virus carries a compact genome of roughly 1,700 base pairs, making it suitable as a proof-of-concept target.

Compressing genetic information into quantum states

Researchers used the smaller dataset to test whether real biological data could be translated into a format that quantum machines can handle.

The genome was loaded onto an IBM quantum computer using its 156-qubit Heron processor.

Successfully encoding the sequence required compressing the genetic information into quantum states that could fit within available qubit limits.

Traditional computers have struggled to keep pace with the surge of genomic data, creating processing bottlenecks that limit how quickly scientists can analyze variation across populations. The move toward pangenomes, which combine sequences from many individuals, adds additional complexity.

Instead of relying on a single reference sequence, pangenomes branch into multiple paths representing genetic diversity. Finding useful patterns inside those branching paths quickly becomes computationally demanding, especially as datasets grow.

“Our goal has always been to push the boundaries of what’s possible in genomics,” said Dr Sergii Strelchuk of the University of Oxford. “When we work with pangenomes, the information is presented in a form of a tangled maze, but we are building quantum algorithms to help find the best path through this maze when regular tools, such as classic computers, just get hopelessly stuck.”

Quantum computing offers a possible path forward by representing many possible outcomes at once inside qubit states. That capability could allow certain genomic calculations to run far faster than classical approaches.

Researchers involved in the project are targeting a future benchmark of processing full human pangenomes up to 100 times faster than traditional tools. The Hepatitis D test does not deliver that speed itself but demonstrates a pathway toward achieving quantum advantage at larger scales.

Some scientists remain cautious about how quickly that transition could happen. As Science.org reports, until quantum systems handle larger genomes and perform full analyses, it's unknown whether they will outperform well-established classical methods.

Even with those limits, loading a complete genome into quantum hardware marks an impressive technical milestone. The next phase focuses on scaling the approach and turning experimental workflows into tools other researchers can use.

For decades, modern navigation has relied heavily on GPS, but another, less visible system plays an equally critical role in helping aircraft, ships, smartphones, and military platforms determine their position.

Earth’s magnetic field, constantly shifting and evolving, underpins the World Magnetic Model (WMM), a global reference that supports navigation systems used by billions of people every day.

Maintaining the accuracy of that model depends on reliable measurements of the magnetic field, yet much of the satellite infrastructure used to gather this data is aging, while the field itself is changing at an accelerating rate.

Quantum diamond magnetometers

These pressures have driven a search for new technologies capable of monitoring the magnetic field with greater precision and frequency.

In response, the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) launched the MagQuest Challenge in 2019, a seven-year, multi-million-dollar competition designed to identify next-generation sensing technologies.

The goal is to develop compact, highly accurate systems that can provide continuous magnetic data, reducing reliance on periodic measurements and helping ensure the long-term reliability of global navigation systems.

One of the companies emerging from this effort is SBQuantum, a Canadian firm specializing in quantum sensing technology. Its approach centers on quantum diamond magnetometers, compact devices that use the principles of quantum physics to measure magnetic fields with exceptional sensitivity.

Recently, the company reached a major milestone when its sensor was launched into orbit as part of the final phase of the MagQuest program. The deployment represents a step toward continuous, space-based monitoring of Earth’s magnetic field and highlights the growing role of quantum technologies in navigation, defense, and public safety.

To better understand the development of this technology, the challenges involved in bringing it to space, and the potential applications beyond navigation, I spoke with David Roy-Guay, Founder of SBQuantum.

• Before we start, can you give us a brief overview of what the WMM is and why it is so important for us.

The World Magnetic Model (WMM) is what powers every electronic compass, including the one in your watch and cellphone. It is essential to keep up to date as the Magnetic North Pole is moving. It was in the Canadian north and is now shifting toward Siberia. This has a real impact on the precision of every analog and digital compass.

Everyday, we use the WMM, just think of the blue arrow in your favorite navigation application telling you to head left or right as you exit a subway station or a hotel. This directional information is complementary to GPS, which provides location information, but doesn’t tell you which way you are facing.

• You mentioned that the satellites feeding it with data are reaching their end of life. What happens next?

Typically the WMM is updated every 5 years when a new official version is released. However recently a new update was released after only 4 years because the movement of the field had accelerated.

Once the mission of the current ESA SWARM constellation of satellites comes to an end, the existing magnetic field maps will be of little value 2-3 years after that. This means the navigation systems on board aircraft and drones will be off significantly, especially in the northernmost areas, possibly up to dozens of degrees. I can think of one example in Alaska when recently a landing strip had to have its numbers changed since it was no longer facing the same direction according to the WMM.

In comparison, our platform ‘Diamond Polaris – 1’ will allow the continuous production of magnetic data for the WMM. This approach is far more cost-effective, gathers and assembles faster, and offers data well suited for accurate positioning.

• How does the data from the WMM project convert into something that can be an alternative to the ubiquitous GPS?

Data collected over a year of orbit is processed and curated by the US NOAA and the US NGA, to inform future versions of the WMM. Although the data is coarse it is applicable to compass applications. Higher resolution versions can be produced by deploying multiple satellites and drones to gather data at different altitudes.

These high-resolution maps will act as a calibration reference to navigation systems (INS systems) and could provide positioning data without GPS to up to 100m precision.

Our spring 2026 space-launch came after years of testing and retesting with NASA and other organizations. SBQuantum’s sensor was deemed to be fit for use in space. This first space deployment is the next step on the road to making magnetic navigation widely available as an alternative to GPS which cannot be jammed or distorted.

• Your company built something called a diamond quantum magnetometer. Why diamond and why quantum?

Being solid state, diamonds are exceptionally stable and provide the right environment to preserve quantum coherence for an extended period, even at room temperature. This enables highly sensitive and very accurate magnetic field measurements for extended satellite missions at a global scale.

Furthermore, the atomic structure of diamonds is well suited to provide measurement of magnetic fields along three axes. For the purposes of navigation it is essential to gather all of that in order to provide directional information.

• You mentioned the size of the device (roughly a quart of milk — about 1L in metric or a cube with 10cm size). Does your roadmap contain products that are smaller? What would something "better" differ in terms of features?

We are still in the early stages of this diamond technology. One of its advantages is that it can eventually be shrunk further, to about the size of a matchbox, without degrading its performance.

This is not the case for classical directional magnetometer technologies. We expect to reach that point in about 3 years, once we scale the production to industry standard wafers, which are of course widely used in the semiconductor industry.

• How does the data captured by a quantum sensor allow for "advanced interpretation algorithms" that conventional sensors simply cannot support? What other applications could these sensors have?

By building an array of directional diamond magnetometers, we can enable real-time magnetic signals interpretation in a way which was otherwise not possible. For instance, we can locate metallic objects underwater, in real-time.

This is also true for metallic objects on the other side of a wall or underground. We are therefore also looking to employ the technology to support security and defense applications.

For instance this could be used for tracking submarines from a drone, or enhancing security at sporting events, or even security at schools and corporate events.

• IBM integrates quantum processors with classical supercomputers for coordinated scientific computations
• Quantum-centric supercomputing allows workloads to switch between CPUs, GPUs, and QPUs
• Researchers successfully simulated complex molecules using hybrid quantum-classical workflows

IBM has outlined a new reference architecture designed to combine quantum processors with traditional supercomputing infrastructure.

The company describes the concept as quantum-centric supercomputing, an approach intended to connect quantum processing units with GPUs and CPUs within large computing environments.

The architecture is designed to operate across research centers, on-premises infrastructure, and cloud systems, while supporting coordinated workflows between different types of hardware.

Designing a unified quantum-classical computing environment

The proposed design integrates quantum processors with classical computing clusters, high-speed networking systems, and shared storage infrastructure.

IBM says this arrangement allows scientific workloads to move between different processors depending on the computational demands of the task.

Open software frameworks, including Qiskit, are intended to manage scheduling and coordination across the combined systems.

Jay Gambetta, Director of IBM Research, said the goal is to merge quantum and classical computing resources into a unified environment capable of addressing problems that traditional supercomputers struggle to simulate.

“More than four decades ago, Richard Feynman envisioned computers that could simulate quantum physics,” he said.

“The future lies in quantum-centric supercomputing, where quantum processors work together with classical high-performance computing to solve problems that were previously out of reach.”

IBM and its research partners have reported measurable scientific results using hybrid quantum-classical computing.

Teams from the University of Manchester, the University of Oxford, ETH Zurich, EPFL, and the University of Regensburg verified the unusual electronic structure of a half Möbius molecule.

Cleveland Clinic scientists simulated a 303-atom tryptophan cage mini protein, while IBM, RIKEN, and the University of Chicago identified the lowest energy states of engineered quantum systems, surpassing classical methods.

In a larger experiment, an IBM quantum processor exchanged data with 152,064 classical nodes of RIKEN’s Fugaku supercomputer to simulate iron-sulfur molecular clusters, critical in biology and chemistry.

Despite these demonstrations, hybrid quantum workflows remain technically complex, as researchers often need to coordinate data transfers, scheduling, and algorithm execution between separate computing systems.

IBM’s reference architecture attempts to address these challenges through coordinated software orchestration and shared infrastructure designed to link quantum and classical resources.

The company describes a staged development path in which quantum processors first operate as specialized accelerators inside existing supercomputing centers.

Later phases would involve tighter coupling between quantum hardware and classical computing clusters through advanced middleware systems.

These experiments show that hybrid quantum systems can contribute to specialized scientific calculations - however, the results remain largely confined to controlled research environments and highly specific simulations.

The roadmap indicates progress in workflow integration and algorithm development, although practical deployment outside research institutions still appears limited for now.

• IBM introduced two new quantum chips in latest step forward
• The Nighthawk chip increases circuit complexity by 30% over its predecessor
• Loon is IBM’s first chip to demonstrate full fault-tolerant components

IBM has announced two new quantum chips as part of its wider roadmap to achieve both quantum advantage and fault-tolerant computing by the end of the decade.

The company says the new Nighthawk and Loon chips mark a major leap toward making practical quantum computing a reality.

The new hardware, launched alongside advances in fabrication and software, aims to bridge the gap between experimental prototypes and commercially useful quantum systems.

Building the foundation for quantum advantage

The Nighthawk chip is designed to reach what IBM calls “quantum advantage,” the point at which a quantum computer can outperform all classical computing methods.

With 120 qubits and 218 tunable couplers arranged in a square lattice, the chip supports circuits with 30% greater complexity than its predecessor while keeping error rates low.

IBM expects the processor to handle up to 5,000 two-qubit gates initially, with future iterations scaling to 15,000 by 2028.

This performance could complement high-end mobile workstations used for AI development and scientific modeling.

The Loon chip, meanwhile, takes a more experimental path, demonstrating all key hardware elements needed for fault-tolerant quantum computing for the first time.

By linking qubits both horizontally and vertically, Loon explores new architectures for more efficient quantum error correction.

IBM claims this marks the first demonstration of all critical processor components required for large-scale fault tolerance.

“There are many pillars to bringing truly useful quantum computing to the world,” said Jay Gambetta, Director of IBM Research and IBM Fellow.

“We believe that IBM is the only company that is positioned to rapidly invent and scale quantum software, hardware, fabrication, and error correction to unlock transformative applications.”

To support these goals, IBM has shifted production of its quantum processors to a 300mm wafer fabrication facility at the Albany NanoTech Complex in New York.

This change doubles the company’s development speed, allowing multiple chip designs to be tested simultaneously and increasing the physical complexity of quantum chips tenfold.

Such improvements suggest that IBM aims to treat quantum processor production with the same rigor applied to modern mini PC and business laptop manufacturing.

Using its updated Qiskit tools, IBM improves quantum circuit accuracy by 24% and reduces computation costs more than a hundredfold through HPC-assisted error mitigation.

IBM is also collaborating with firms such as Algorithmiq, BlueQubit, and the Flatiron Institute to support community-led efforts that track and verify “quantum advantage.”

• PsiQuantum to build utility scale systems in Brisbane and Chicago with new funding
• Company expands photonic chip production and develops Barium Titanate switches for quantum scaling
• Cooling and networking systems designed for data center style racks to support million qubits

PsiQuantum has announced that it has raised $1 billion of Series E funding to further its goal of building fault-tolerant quantum computers at the scale of one million qubits.

The company plans to create sites in Brisbane and Chicago for large-scale prototypes and begin work on utility-scale systems.

Founded on the idea that commercially valuable quantum computing requires error correction, PsiQuantum has focused its approach on photonic qubits.

Overcoming scaling challenges

It believes that by combining photon-based quantum technology with the manufacturing capabilities of semiconductor fabs, it can overcome scaling challenges that continue to slow progress in the field.

These include manufacturability, cooling systems capable of handling thousands of chips, and reliable networking between modules.

“Only building the real thing - million-qubit-scale, fault-tolerant machines - will unlock the promise of quantum computing,” said Jeremy O’Brien, co-founder and chief executive officer.

"We defined what it takes from day one, this is a grand engineering challenge, not a science experiment. We tackled the hardest problems first - at the architectural and chip level - and are now mass-manufacturing best-in-class quantum photonic chips at a leading US semiconductor fab. With this funding, we’re ready to take the next decisive steps to deliver the full potential of quantum computing,” he added.

“Nearly nine years after we started, we have pushed the technology to an unprecedented level of maturity and performance,” Pete Shadbolt, co-founder and chief scientific officer, said.

“We have the chips, we have the switches, we have a scalable cooling technology, we can do networking, we have found the sites, we have the commercial motive and the government support – we’re ready to get on and build utility-scale systems.”

PsiQuantum has already built a high-volume manufacturing process for its integrated photonic chipsets, designed in-house and fabricated at GlobalFoundries’ Fab 8 in New York.

It has also developed new electro-optic switches by including Barium Titanate in its chip production.

These switches are considered critical for scaling optical quantum systems and could also be applied in AI supercomputers that require high-speed, low-power networking.

At the same time, PsiQuantum is designing cooling and control systems that resemble data center racks rather than traditional cryostats.

The company has already demonstrated networking between quantum cabinets using standard telecom fiber, which it says is a requirement for large-scale deployment.

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Ten years ago, quantum technology was a niche topic mostly discussed by academics, researchers, science enthusiasts, and a handful of deep tech investors. Jump forward to 2025, and “quantum computing” is fast becoming a household term. So, how did we get here?

Despite quantum’s recent surge in public awareness, our generation has been reaping the benefits of quantum mechanics for our entire lives. Technologies built on its principles have quietly underpinned systems we now rely on every day, enabling GPS-powered maps on your smartphone, optical networks that carry your internet traffic, and the semiconductor chips in your devices.

In fact, we’ve been living in a quantum-enabled world for nearly a century (even if we didn’t always fully understand it), a milestone the UN is marking in 2025 with the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology.

While the industry is generating more press coverage, the full scope of quantum applications has not reached the mainstream. Quantum computing dominates the conversation and holds transformative potential, yet many people assume its benefits are still years away. Less visible is quantum sensing, already deployed in atomic clocks that synchronize GPS and other Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) networks.

These foundational advancements belong to what is now called “Quantum 1.0.” Today, researchers are building toward “Quantum 2.0,” which promises integrated, distributed, and accessible quantum technologies at scale.

Classical quantum applications

Where did we start with quantum technology? One of the earliest real-world applications is the sodium lamp, invented in the 1920s and once seen almost ubiquitously in streetlights. If you’ve ever wondered why the light it emits is a pure, nearly monochromatic yellow, the answer lies in quantum mechanics: electrons jumping between discrete energy levels.

Likewise, semiconductors, which power all our modern devices, rely fundamentally on quantum principles such as band theory and tunnelling. Even the fiber optic cables carrying this article to your screen use light sources, laser diodes or LEDs, that depend entirely on quantum mechanical processes like spontaneous and stimulated photon emission.

These are all examples of us harnessing what you might call “classical” quantum effects - phenomena we were able to exploit for a long time. In many ways, we built an entire technological civilization on quantum foundations, treating these principles as invisible background physics that simply made our devices work.

Advanced quantum

Today’s quantum revolution isn’t just bigger, it’s fundamentally different, even if the underpinning physics is similar. Quantum 2.0 moves beyond leveraging large-scale quantum effects and instead focuses on actively manipulating individual atoms, ions, and photons. By working at the atomic and subatomic level, researchers can exploit superposition, entanglement, and coherence, opening doors to entirely new capabilities.

This new frontier is no longer limited to complex lab experiments or niche applications. Quantum technologies are increasingly being developed for scalable, real-world impact, bridging the gap between cutting-edge research and practical use. A prime example is GNSS, which underpins modern life by providing precise position, navigation, and timing (PNT) data for everything from smartphones to financial networks.

However, GNSS is not flawless: it suffers from reduced accuracy around the poles due to sparse satellite coverage, can be blocked by mountains or dense urban environments, does not function underwater, and is inherently vulnerable to jamming and spoofing. The consequences of disruption are severe; a seven-day outage could cost the UK economy alone as much as £7.6 billion.

Distributed quantum-powered atomic clocks are emerging as a potential solution. By providing highly stable timing signals comparable to GNSS, without relying on satellite signals, they can augment the existing infrastructure and keep critical communication and financial networks synchronized even during signal loss or deliberate interference. Early deployments are already underway across key infrastructure sectors.

The above is just one application. In 2025, Quantum 2.0 technologies are starting to enter the market in multiple forms. Another example is quantum encryption devices that provide unprecedented cybersecurity. These systems will be vital as quantum computers mature and gain the computational power to break today’s classical encryption schemes, ensuring our digital world remains secure in the quantum era.

Tomorrow’s quantum

You might be wondering where all this will ultimately lead, and the truth is, we don’t fully know yet. What is clear is that the next quantum revolution will arrive when today’s emerging technologies converge at scale, working seamlessly together.

Quantum sensors will collect data about the world around us with unprecedented precision. Quantum computers will deliver the processing power to analyze and optimize this data in real time, especially when paired with advanced artificial intelligence. The results will then be distributed via quantum-secure networks, creating communication channels that are extremely resilient to cyber threats.

The possibilities are profound. We could accelerate drug discovery, advance our understanding of medicine and the human body at a pace previously unimaginable. We could explore deep- sea and space environments with unprecedented capability.

Quantum tools could optimize renewable energy grids, monitor carbon sequestration to fight climate change, and transform industries that today seem unrelated to quantum science. Perhaps most excitingly, the most revolutionary applications are those we cannot yet imagine, because only when these technologies operate in concert will we begin to see the full potential of the quantum era.

Achieving this vision will not be simple. It demands collaboration across the entire ecosystem: academia, industry, investors, and government working together to translate quantum research into practical, global impact. International coordination will be essential, with shared knowledge, secure supply chains, and sustained investment to enable the scalable deployment of quantum technologies.

For technology leaders and professionals, the quantum transition presents both extraordinary opportunity and significant risk. Early adopters will gain advantages in security, computational power, and sensing, while laggards may find themselves struggling to catch up. Realizing the promise of this quantum future will require trust, investment, and a collective commitment to evolve with purpose.

As we stand on the edge of this revolution, the path forward is as thrilling as it is transformative.

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• IBM and AMD partner to combine quantum and high performance computing
• Collaboration aims to accelerate research in fields from drug discovery to logistics
• Companies plan open source platforms and hybrid workflows with initial demo soon

IBM and AMD have announced plans to “build the future of computing” by collaborating on new architecture to blend quantum systems with high-performance hardware in a bid to solve some of the world's most difficult problems.

The partnership will combine IBM’s expertise in building quantum computers and related software with AMD’s background in processors, graphics, and AI accelerators in a step toward quantum-centric supercomputing.

The companies are looking at ways in which to integrate AMD CPUs, GPUs, and FPGAs with IBM’s quantum computers, with the ultimate goal to accelerate emerging algorithms that neither quantum nor classical systems can handle on their own.

Pushing past the limits

"Quantum computing will simulate the natural world and represent information in an entirely new way," said Arvind Krishna, Chairman and CEO, IBM.

"By exploring how quantum computers from IBM and the advanced high-performance compute technologies of AMD can work together, we will build a powerful hybrid model that pushes past the limits of traditional computing."

The two tech giants will work together to build open-source platforms that can scale and support research in fields such as drug development, materials science, and supply chain optimization.

Lisa Su, Chair and CEO of AMD, also emphasized the importance of the partnership, saying, "High-performance computing is the foundation for solving the world's most important challenges. As we partner with IBM to explore the convergence of high-performance computing and quantum technologies, we see tremendous opportunities to accelerate discovery and innovation."

AMD has previously worked on some of the world’s fastest supercomputers, including Frontier and El Capitan.

This hybrid approach is also expected to support IBM’s roadmap toward fault-tolerant quantum computing, a milestone the company has said it hopes to reach before the end of the decade.

IBM has already begun similar work with other partners including Riken in Japan, as well as institutions like Cleveland Clinic and Lockheed Martin.

An initial demonstration is planned for later this year and will show how IBM quantum computers can work alongside AMD technology to deliver hybrid quantum-classical workflows.

The partnership will support open-source ecosystems, such as Qiskit, in a bid to encourage the development of algorithms for quantum-centric supercomputing.

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We are at a tipping point for quantum computing, which is on the verge of becoming a reality. While its potential is tantalizing, it also represents an unprecedented threat to the traditional data security infrastructure and the cryptographic algorithms that protect it. Post-quantum cryptography – algorithms designed to be secure against classical and quantum computer attacks – is the response.

Quantum computers exploit the principles of quantum mechanics to solve complex problems that classic computers cannot feasibly tackle. Quantum computers use the principles of quantum mechanics to process information in a way that uses qubits, which can exist in multiple states, as opposed to normal computers, which only use "zeros" and "ones". This creates an exponential scale, which is what gives them their computational power.

Of particular concern is their ability to crack widely used public key encryption algorithms such as RSA and ECC (elliptic curve cryptography). By the time a sufficiently powerful quantum computer becomes available, these encryption methods, which protect virtually all current digital communications, will be obsolete.

The date when cryptographically-relevant quantum computers will appear remains uncertain: estimates range from five to 10 years. However, the risk is immediate due to the "harvest now, decrypt later" attacks that are already taking place, especially for data with a longer lifetime.

If an organization retains sensitive data for the long term, such as financial information, personal data or even trade secrets, this represents a significant and growing risk.

What is at stake is nothing less than the most valuable digital assets: intellectual property, private and sensitive data, authentication systems and secure communications.

The financial, operational and reputational damage from such exposures could be catastrophic, and unavoidable without proactive measures.

What is post-quantum cryptography?

Post-quantum cryptography (PQC) refers to cryptographic algorithms designed to be secure against attacks by classical and quantum computers. These algorithms are based on mathematical problems that remain difficult to solve even for quantum computers.

In 2024, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published its first set of standardized post-quantum cryptographic algorithms, including CRYSTALS-Kyber, CRYSTALS-Dilithium, SPHINCS+ and FALCON. In March 2025, NIST selected a new algorithm, Hamming Quasi-Cyclic (HQC), which will serve as a backup to the existing Module-Lattice-Based Key-Encapsulation Mechanism (ML-KEM) algorithms recommended by FIPS 203 to protect against quantum attacks.

HQC is based on error-correcting codes, a concept that has been fundamental to information security for decades. Unlike ML-KEM, which relies on structured networks, HQC's unique mathematical basis offers a robust alternative that can help combat the potential threats posed by future quantum computers. This shift in mathematical approaches is crucial for maintaining the integrity of encrypted data.

The time for change is now

The time when currently encrypted data can be decrypted using quantum technology is closer than many people think. However, while most organizations are actively working on cyber resilience strategies, including their core IT infrastructure and components of the supply chain, the risk to quantum computing is not as widely considered.

Changing cryptography in a complex IT environment is not something that can be done overnight. It can take years, especially for large organizations with complex IT environments. Historical precedent shows that major cryptographic transitions typically take 5-10 years to complete.

Beginning the transition

To begin a transition to post-quantum cryptography, a number of steps must be followed:

1. Cryptographic inventory: Not all data is equally important, and not all data needs to be encrypted in the same way. It is therefore necessary to identify where cryptography should be used in the digital heritage. This should include the most sensitive data, applications, networks, identity systems, and third-party connections.

2. Risk assessment: Given the cost of post-quantum cryptography, it makes sense to prioritize protecting the most sensitive data rather than trying to protect everything. Evaluate your data in terms of its sensitivity and longevity. Information that must remain confidential for more than five years should receive immediate attention. For less sensitive data, standard encryption methods will suffice in keeping it secure.

3. Crypto-agility implementation: Being crypto-agile – having the ability to switch between different cryptographic algorithms in response to new threats – will be essential in the post-quantum era. Develop frameworks that allow you to quickly replace cryptographic algorithms without the need for extensive system redesign. Crypto-agility also requires employee training, so invest time and resources to bring your employees on this journey with you.

4. Prioritized migration: Start with your most sensitive systems and data, particularly those that protect intellectual property or personally identifiable information.

5. Supplier engagement: Confirm that all suppliers in your ecosystem are aligned with emerging standards to ensure end-to-end protection and agility.

In summary

By starting your post-quantum transition today, you can help protect your organization's most valuable data as we enter the quantum era. The alternative is to wait for quantum computers to break existing encryption – by then, it will be too late for data that has already been compromised. The future is quantum and the time to future-proof your data is now.

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Quantum computing has long occupied the edges of our collective imagination – frequently mentioned, rarely understood. For many, it remains a distant prospect rather than an immediate concern. But that mindset is fast becoming a risk in itself.

While understanding may be limited today, that must quickly change. Quantum computing has long been viewed as a technology several decades away, but recent breakthroughs suggest it could arrive far sooner.

Google’s Willow and Microsoft’s Majorana chips signal rapid technical acceleration, and the UK Government’s £500 million investment in quantum innovation confirms that global leaders are no longer treating this as speculative, but as a strategic priority.

Despite this, only 35% of professionals surveyed by ISACA believe quantum will enter the mainstream within years rather than decades, highlighting just how much industry perception is lagging behind reality.

That disconnect extends beyond expectations – it’s impacting readiness. Most organizations have yet to factor quantum into their cybersecurity planning, even though the technology is set to fundamentally reshape how vast sectors of society operate online.

This isn’t just about adopting a new form of computing – it’s about protecting the systems, economies and infrastructures that underpin our digital lives. And that starts with truly understanding what quantum is, and how it could both redefine and disrupt the cybersecurity landscape.

The Fundamentals: A Primer on Quantum Computing

If classical computers are powerful calculators, quantum computers are like probability engines, processing information in ways that allow them to explore many possibilities simultaneously.

Classical computing relies on bits, which are binary units of information that can either be 0 or 1. Quantum computers, by contrast, use qubits (quantum bits), which can be both 0 and 1 at the same time – a phenomenon known as superposition. Qubits can also be entangled, meaning the state of one can instantly influence another, even at a distance.

This means quantum computers can perform complex calculations by exploring multiple paths at once, rather than one-by-one. Where a classical computer might take thousands of years to crack encryption software or simulate a protein structure, a quantum computer could, in theory, complete the task in seconds.

But this is not about speed alone – it’s about capability. Quantum computing makes it possible to solve problems previously considered intractable: from modelling complex chemical reactions at the atomic level, optimizing vast and variable systems like global logistics, to breaking the mathematical problems that make today’s encryption secure.

When it comes to AI the effect is expected to be hugely transformational as the capability of Quantum will lead AI to a new era, both in terms of its level of intelligence and value but also in terms of the risks that come along with AI. These breakthroughs will have profound implications for the systems that underpin daily life, including cybersecurity, healthcare, and finance.

Why Quantum Matters: Revolutionary Potential Across Sectors

Quantum computers won’t replace classical machines, but they will be used to solve problems that today’s systems simply can’t at exponentially faster speeds. Their ability to handle complexity at scale means quantum computing will unlock solutions that were previously impossible or impractical, with major implications across a range of sectors.

This potential is already being recognized by many in the industry. ISACA’s Quantum Pulse Poll found that a majority (56%) of European IT professionals welcome the arrival of quantum computing, with the same number predicting that it will create significant business opportunities.

In healthcare, quantum systems could accelerate drug discovery by modelling molecules and protein folding far more accurately than classical machines allow. In business and finance, they could transform how organizations optimize supply chains, manage risk, and harness artificial intelligence to process and learn from vast datasets.

In cybersecurity, quantum has the power to redefine how we protect systems and data. Quantum Key Distribution could enable theoretically unbreakable encryption. AI-driven threat detection could become faster and more effective. And quantum-secure digital identity systems could help prevent fraud and impersonation.

But while these developments hold huge promise, they also introduce one of the most serious challenges facing cybersecurity today.

Quantum and Cybersecurity: A Looming Disruption

This isn’t a distant concern. Over two-thirds (67%) of cybersecurity professionals surveyed by ISACA believe that quantum computing will increase or shift cyber risk over the next decade, and it’s not hard to see why.

At the center of concern is encryption. Today’s most common cryptographic methods, like RSA and ECC, are built on mathematical problems that classical computers can’t solve in practical timeframes. But quantum machines could crack these with relative ease, putting the security of data at serious risk.

This raises the very real threat of “harvest now, decrypt later” where malicious actors steal encrypted data today, intending to unlock it once quantum capabilities arrive. Sensitive information considered secure now, such as financial records, personal data, and classified communications could be exposed overnight.

The implications are vast. If these foundational algorithms are broken, the ripple effect would be felt across every sector. Cryptography underpins not just cybersecurity systems, but digital infrastructure itself, from banking and healthcare to identity verification and cloud computing.

As quantum advances, preparing for this threat is no longer optional. It’s a critical step toward protecting the digital systems we all rely on.

The Reality Check: How ready are we for quantum?

While the pace of quantum innovation accelerates, organizational readiness is not keeping up.

Few organizations have started preparations. Just 4% of IT professionals say their organization has a defined quantum computing strategy in place. In many cases, quantum is still entirely off the radar. More than half of respondents (52%) report that the technology isn’t part of their roadmap, with no plans to include it.

Even when it comes to mitigation, most have yet to take basic steps. Despite the risks posed to current encryption standards, 40% of professionals say their organization hasn’t considered implementing post-quantum cryptography, creating worrying potential for disruption.

Part of the challenge lies in awareness. Quantum remains unfamiliar territory for most professionals, with only 2% describing themselves as extremely familiar with the technology. And while the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has spent more than a decade developing post-quantum encryption standards, just 5% of respondents say they have a strong understanding of them.

Meanwhile, global progress on quantum development continues to accelerate. Commercial applications are likely to arrive sooner than many expect, yet they may do so in a digital ecosystem unfit to cope. If encryption breaks before defenses are in place, the consequences could be severe, with widespread operational disruption, reputational harm, and regulatory fallout.

Preparing for quantum is no longer a theoretical exercise. The risk is real, and the window for proactive action is closing.

Preparing for the Post-Quantum Future

Preparing for quantum computing isn’t just a technical upgrade – it’s a strategic imperative. Yet most professionals still lack the awareness and skills needed to navigate what’s coming. Quantum education must now be a priority, not just for security teams, but across leadership, risk, and governance functions.

Governments have a role to play too. The UK’s £60 million investment in quantum skills is a strong start, but long-term readiness will depend on sustained collaboration between public and private sectors.

For organizations, action is needed now. That means identifying where quantum could pose a risk, assessing encryption dependencies, and beginning the shift to quantum-safe systems. Crucially, none of this will be possible without the right expertise.

Developing a holistically trained workforce on quantum (whilst continuing to do this for AI) will enable organizations to apply new technologies effectively and securely before the threats materialize.

Quantum brings extraordinary potential, but it also demands urgent preparation. Those who act early will be far better positioned to secure their systems and lead confidently in a post-quantum world.

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This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

• Quantum computers will soon be able to break modern-day encryption
• When that happens, nation-states can abuse the tech to steal sensitive files
• Organizations need to prepare today, Capgemini says

Sooner or later, quantum computers will be able to break through today’s encryption, and when that happens, critical industries such as defense, critical infrastructure, telecommunications, and others, will be at risk of nation-state attackers with enough resources to use the advanced tech for nefarious purposes such as espionage or data theft, research has warned.

In fact, many nation-states are likely harvesting encrypted data already, in preparation of that “Q-day” moment - an attack dubbed “harvest now, decrypt later”.

A new report from the Capgemini Research Institute surveyed 1,000 organizations with annual revenue of at least $1 billion across 13 sectors and 13 countries in Asia–Pacific, Europe, and North America, finding the majority of the respondents (around 70%) are referred to as “early adopters” - meaning they’re either working, or planning to work on quantum-safe solutions, within the next five years.

Harvest now, decrypt later

Capgemini’s researchers found that two-thirds (65%) of respondents are already concerned about the rise of “harvest-now-decrypt-later” attacks, with one in six early adopters believing “Q-day” will happen within the next five years.

Even more, around 60%, believe Q-day will happen within a decade from now.

To mitigate the risk, businesses in vital industries should transition to post-quantum protections as soon as possible.

“Transitioning early ensures business continuity, regulatory alignment, and long-term trust,” said Marco Pereira, Global Head of Cybersecurity, Cloud Infrastructure Services at Capgemini.

“Quantum safety is not a discretionary spend but a strategic investment, which can turn a looming risk into a competitive advantage. The organizations that recognize this fact early will best insulate themselves against future cyber-attacks.”

The report also states that most organizations surveyed (70%) are already protecting their systems against emerging quantum threats through a mix of post-quantum cryptographic algorithms.

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• Hybrid nodes combining CPUs, Nvidia GPUs, and diamond QPUs could change how we build quantum software
• From defense to finance, Quantum Brilliance is betting on diamond chips to drive adoption

Diamonds have emerged as a critical material in the development of quantum technologies due to their unique atomic properties, and Quantum Brilliance, a company based in Germany and Australia, has outlined an ambitious plan to develop portable quantum computers using diamond-based quantum processing units (QPUs).

These devices are being designed to operate at room temperature and may eventually be integrated alongside GPUs and high-end CPUs in servers or vehicles.

But while the company’s vision promises a future where quantum computing is as seamless as plugging in a GPU for AI inference, several technical and commercial hurdles remain.

Rethinking quantum computing with diamonds

Over the past decade, researchers have increasingly focused on engineering high-purity synthetic diamonds to minimize interference from impurities.

Notably, a 2022 collaboration between a Japanese jewelry firm and academic researchers led to a new method for producing ultra-pure 2-inch diamond wafers.

In 2023, Amazon joined the effort through its Center for Quantum Networking, partnering with De Beers’ Element Six to grow lab-made diamonds for use in quantum communication systems.

Now, Quantum Brilliance aims to utilize nitrogen vacancies in diamond to create qubits, offering a more compact and power-efficient alternative to cryogenic quantum systems.

“We do have a roadmap to fault tolerance, but we are not worrying about that at the moment,” said Andrew Dunn, COO of Quantum Brilliance.

“People think of millions of qubits, but that will be very expensive and power hungry. I think getting an understanding of having 100 qubits in a car cheaply and simply - the use cases are very different."

This signals a departure from the prevailing trend in quantum computing, which focuses on building systems with millions of qubits.

The company is instead targeting inexpensive and practical use cases, particularly in applications such as AI inference and sparse data processing.

Quantum Brilliance is already collaborating with research institutions like the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics (IAF).

IAF is currently evaluating the company’s second-generation Quantum Development Kit, QB-QDK2.0, which integrates classical processors like Nvidia GPUs and CPUs with the QPU in a single box.

In parallel, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US has acquired three systems to study scalability and parallel processing for applications like molecular modeling.

“The reason they are buying three systems is that they want to investigate parallelisation of systems,” Dunn added.

Quantum Brilliance is also working closely with imec to integrate diamond processes into standard chip manufacturing.

Beyond computation, the company sees potential in quantum sensing, and the technology may also be repurposed for defense and industrial sensors.

Ultimately, the company wants quantum computing to become as ordinary as any other chip in a server.

“Personally, I want to make quantum really boring and invisible, just another chip doing its job,” said Dunn.

Via eeNewsEurope

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The UK government’s recent £121 million commitment to advancing the quantum technology sector is an exciting milestone for both innovation and economic growth. As part of its "Plan for Change," the investment aims to strengthen the UK's position in quantum research and technology, offering a glimpse into the future of fraud detection, healthcare diagnostics, and beyond.

However, while the potential of quantum technology to transform industries around the world is undeniable, this potential leap forward comes with caveats. We must ensure that our pursuit of innovation does not outpace our ability to secure sensitive data today and in the years to come.

As quantum computing moves closer to practical application, it presents not only unprecedented technological opportunities, but also cybersecurity risks as the encryption mechanisms that have always safeguarded sensitive information are vulnerable. The challenge now lies in building networks that aren’t just faster and more agile, but also resilient against the future threats posed by quantum computer enabled attacks.

Quantum’s double-edged sword

Quantum computing has the potential to offer enormous benefits, from enabling breakthroughs in fields such as artificial intelligence, healthcare, and logistics to providing faster, more efficient solutions to problems that are beyond today's capabilities.

But with these advancements comes the risk of quantum-enabled cyberattacks. Quantum computers, once fully realized, will be capable of breaking today’s standard encryption algorithms, exposing data that is currently viewed as secure. This creates a challenge for governments and enterprises handling sensitive information to future-proof their networks before quantum computing threats are upon us.

A growing concern in the cybersecurity community is the threat referred to as “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later” attacks. In this scenario, critical encrypted data is intercepted today and stored by malicious actors, with the intent of decrypting it in the future using quantum capabilities to break the encryption. This is particularly concerning for sensitive information such as electronic health records, intellectual property, patents or national security information, which could be exposed once quantum computers are sufficiently advanced.

The Key technologies for protection

To address these risks, there are two emerging solutions: Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC). QKD uses quantum mechanics to securely exchange encryption keys. This technology takes advantage of the fundamental principles of quantum physics, making it impossible for hackers to intercept or tamper with the key exchange process without being detected. This is why combining encryption technologies available today with QKD delivers what is mathematically proven to be unconditional security of critical data.

Meanwhile, PQC focuses on developing a new generation of cryptographic algorithms designed to protect data and systems against quantum computer attacks. Combining these techniques with existing encryption methods is crucial towards safeguarding critical data against future quantum computing threats. It’s clear that quantum readiness requires both innovation and caution and that the industry must move swiftly to integrate quantum-safe technologies into the fabric of global networks.

Futureproofing starts with collaboration, not complacency

Securing today’s networks in the quantum era is no small task. Governments, network providers, and tech innovators are taking steps to continue creating robust security frameworks, ensuring that the global IT infrastructure can withstand quantum-powered attacks. Transitioning to a quantum-safe future requires industry-wide collaboration and proactively taking steps to get there.

The UK’s investment in quantum technologies goes hand-in-hand with a forward-thinking approach to cybersecurity. It's important for the public and private sectors to work together to develop national and international frameworks that prioritize both innovation and security. As the industry continues to develop and deploy quantum technologies, safeguarding our digital ecosystem should be at the forefront of our efforts.

While QKD and PQC offer promising solutions, integrating these technologies into existing infrastructure will take time. Protecting sensitive in-flight data today continuous to be top of mind, especially as quantum computing continues to advance

Inaction could leave networks vulnerable, compromising the confidentiality of sensitive data, damaging trust, and undermining the tremendous potential of quantum innovations. Collaboration among governments, enterprises and the tech community is key to building the right security measures for the future.

As we navigate this new quantum era, it’s time to future-proof the digital landscape. We must act decisively and thoughtfully to ensure we’re prepared for the threats it brings. The question is no longer if quantum will change our world, but how we will adapt to ensure critical data remains secure.

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This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

• Nord Quantique promises quantum power without the bulk or energy drain
• Traditional HPC may fall if Nord’s speed and energy claims prove real
• Cracking RSA-830 in an hour could transform cybersecurity forever

A quantum computing startup has announced plans to develop a utility-scale quantum computer with more than 1,000 logical qubits by 2031.

Nord Quantique has set an ambitious target which, if achieved, could signal a seismic shift in high-performance computing (HPC).

The company claims its machines are smaller and would offer far greater efficiency in both speed and energy consumption, thereby making traditional HPC systems obsolete.

Advancing error correction through multimode encoding

Nord Quantique uses “multimode encoding” via a technique known as the Tesseract code, and this allows each physical cavity in the system to represent more than one quantum mode, effectively increasing redundancy and resilience without adding complexity or size.

“Multimode encoding allows us to build quantum computers with excellent error correction capabilities, but without the impediment of all those physical qubits,” explained Julien Camirand Lemyre, CEO of Nord Quantique.

“Beyond their smaller and more practical size, our machines will also consume a fraction of the energy, which makes them appealing for instance to HPC centers where energy costs are top of mind.”

Nord’s machines would occupy a mere 20 square meters, making them highly suitable for data center integration.

Compared to 1,000–20,000 m² needed by competing platforms, this portability further strengthens its case.

“These smaller systems are also simpler to develop to utility-scale due to their size and lower requirements for cryogenics and control electronics,” the company added.

The implication here is significant: better error correction without scaling physical infrastructure, a central bottleneck in the quantum race.

In a technical demonstration, Nord’s system exhibited excellent stability over 32 error correction cycles with no measurable decay in quantum information.

“Their approach of encoding logical qubits in multimode Tesseract states is a very effective method of addressing error correction and I am impressed with these results,” said Yvonne Gao, Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore.

“They are an important step forward on the industry’s journey toward utility-scale quantum computing.”

Such endorsements lend credibility, but independent validation and repeatability remain critical for long-term trust.

Nord Quantique claims its system could solve RSA-830, a representative cryptographic challenge, in just one hour using 120 kWh of energy at 1 MHz speed, slashing the energy need by 99%.

In contrast, traditional HPC systems would require approximately 280,000 kWh over nine days. Other quantum modalities, such as superconducting, photonic, cold atoms, and ion traps, fall short in either speed or efficiency.

For instance, cold atoms might consume only 20 kW, but solving the same problem would take six months.

That said, there remains a need for caution. Post-selection - used in Nord’s error correction demonstrations, required discarding 12.6% of data per round. While this helped show stability, it introduces questions about real-world consistency.

In quantum computing, the leap from laboratory breakthrough to practical deployment can be vast; thus, the claims on energy reduction and system miniaturization, though striking, need independent real-world verification.

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• These updates come to Windows and Linux
• New tools will continue to evolve to try and match the threat capabilities

Quantum computers currently only exist within specialized laboratories - but it’s generally understood this will not be the case for long, and the technology could soon be introduced into a number of different industries like finance, cybersecurity, and even medicine.

The evolution in quantum computing presents new challenges for cybersecurity teams, with the tech theorized to have the potential to break encryption and “disrupt contemporary cryptographic algorithms,” Microsoft has warned.

To tackle this, Microsoft is introducing a “significant milestone” in the post-quantum cryptography (PQC) journey by making PQC capabilities available for Windows Insiders, Canary Channel Build 27852 and higher, and Linux, SymCrypt-OpenSSL version 1.9.0.

SymCrypt additions

This means that customers will be able to begin experimenting with PQC “within their operational environments”.

For Windows, Microsoft is bringing ML-KEM and ML-DSA for Windows Insiders through updates to the Cryptography API: Next Generation (CNG) libraries as well as the Certificate and Cryptographic messaging functions.

This aims to help developers prepare for “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks. The changes correspond with NIST standardised algorithms, but will be continuously developed and updated to meet new requirements.

New changes have also been introduced to Linux, with updates for programmers to use OpenSSL’s API surface powered by SymCrypt cryptographic operations. Version 1.9.0 will enable developers to play around with TLS hybrid key exchange to prepare for future threats.

“PQC algorithms are relatively new, and it is prudent not to consider the initial generation of PQC algorithms as the definitive solution but rather view this as an evolving field,” Microsoft explains.

“This underscores the importance of "Crypto Agility" which involves designing solutions to be more resilient to the use of different algorithms and/or upgradable to use future algorithms as the PQ standards evolve.”

Researchers believe that quantum computing could be the ‘biggest security threat of all time’ and able to break even the toughest existing encryptions - so updates to security will be much needed for software firms as the tech develops.

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• Three in five businesses are exploring quantum AI
• Data analytics and machine learning is a key application for the tech
• High costs and lacking knowledge and skills are barriers to full adoption

Businesses are more familiar with quantum AI than you might expect, with more then three in five actively investing in or exploring the technology, new research has claimed.

A report from SAS has revealed how the technology's most popular application is in data analytics and machine learning (48%), with research and development a fairly close second (41%) and cybersecurity in third place (35%).

Supple chain and logistics (31%), finance and risk management (26%) and marketing (20%) are also areas that are being explored for the use of quantum AI.

Quantum AI might be the next development in AI

The company noted 'quantum AI' is the combination of AI as we know it today with the power of quantum computing, enabling the development of new algorithms, models and other systems that can process complex data, train complicated ML models and solve problems that would otherwise be considered highly challenging or impossible with today's tech.

However, the usual barriers apply as per any new technology, with high costs (38%), a lack of knowledge or understanding (35%), uncertainty about real-world use cases (31%), a lack of trained workers (31%) and a lack of regulatory guidelines (26%) all preventing businesses from being able to or wanting to explore quantum AI in more detail.

SAS even acknowledged that there's a lot of hype around quantum computing and quantum AI, adding that today's research into the topic can be confusing.

"With the emergence of quantum technologies, companies can analyse more data than ever and achieve amazingly fast answers to very complex questions involving myriad variables," SAS Principal Quantum Architect Bill Wisotsky explained.

Although many argue that quantum AI use cases could still be years – or even decades – off, today's research is paving the way and many enterprises are already starting to explore the emerging technology's applications now.

Among the key industries set to benefit from quantum AI include life sciences for drug discovery, financial services for risk management, and manufacturing for optimized processes.

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The UK Government has announced a £121 million investment into quantum technologies, a move it says will help “tackle fraud, prevent money laundering, and drive growth”.

The government hopes to achieve this by bolstering the UK’s world-leading research programmes, which it says will bring a “range of benefits to working people, including improved healthcare systems and boosted energy efficiency in the grid.”

These are the perfect combination of big, impressive promises that are vague enough to evade any real scrutiny, with a budget that seems huge, but will most likely fall seriously short of making any real difference. Will these research projects actually bring about an end to fraud? Well, let’s start by looking at a breakdown of the spending.

An expensive venture

The new investment starts with £46.1 million through Innovate UK, and a further £21.1 million for the National Quantum Computing Centre, including a testbed programme with Innovate UK, to “to accelerate the discovery of more ways that quantum can overhaul how we work and solve problems”.

To me, this suggests the government wants more sectors to adopt quantum computing, but it’s not quite sure what for yet.

Quantum computing is in its infancy, and its potential is huge, but the British government is pledging hundreds of millions to a solution it hasn’t yet matched to a problem - just to avoid falling behind.

These cash injections come alongside a further £10.9 million for the National Physical Laboratory’s quantum measurement programme, in order to encourage more businesses to “make full use of the technology”.

Here’s the thing, though: quantum computing in its current form is outrageously expensive. Mass production of quantum computers for commercial use is still, at best guess, years away - and one single mid-range quantum computer (with 50-100 qubits) costs upwards of $1 million, SpinQ estimates.

Included in the £121 million figure is £24.6 million in funding from EPSRC for five previously announced research hubs, and £15.1 million spread between 11 Quantum Technology Acceleration Fellowships to help find “more real-world applications for quantum, from drug discovery to disease diagnostics” - yet more potential uses of the new emerging technology.

Great expectations

To be clear, research is always positive, and the government should be establishing public research projects into potential use-cases for quantum computing, an area that has huge potential for public benefit - and if quantum technology can eliminate fraud then that’s fantastic.

That being said, at this stage, quantum computing isn’t ready for commercialisation, and it is so expensive that £121 million is just a drop in the ocean for the technology, whereas that funding could be used to make a real, tangible difference elsewhere - like for the nature-friendly farming budget (recently cut by the government), costing the same amount, but protecting 239,000 hectares of land, or the £120 million project to help the UK transition to zero-emissions vehicles - a measurable benefit for the British public.

The UK has a well-developed technology sector, but struggles with a serious skills shortage, low wages, and a productivity problem. As great as quantum technology has the potential to be, these underlying issues will taint any new developments until they’re resolved - and the government’s promise to “save millions for our economy, create thousands of jobs and improve businesses across the country” with this relatively small cash injection seems like a stretch.

For context, it’s estimated that China has invested over $15 billion into public quantum funding, out-spending both the EU ($7.2 billion), and the US ($1.9 billion). To suggest that such a small investment by the UK will simultaneously tackle crime, fraud, and money laundering, as well as delivering thousands of jobs and cementing the UK as a world-leader in quantum is incredibly optimistic, and quite frankly, the money could be used elsewhere.

The UK’s current 10 year plan for quantum spending commits just £2.5 billion to development, an investment level likely to be overshadowed by a host of other states. Although investments are needed, without a coherent quantum strategy and guided public policy, these are likely to be lacking.

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New technology means new opportunities for innovation, but it also enables malicious hackers to cook up new cyberattacks. We always have to be on the lookout for new threats, even if they’re still looming on the horizon. There's one day in particular that every security researcher has marked in their diary, however, and that's "Q-Day" – the moment when quantum computing becomes powerful enough to break current encryption standards.

Living in a “post-quantum future” might sound like something straight out of a sci-fi blockbuster, but it’s something that we all need to prepare for. Quantum computers are real, advancing fast, and could eventually upend the technologies we use to encrypt data. That includes VPNs, which rely heavily on current encryption standards to protect our internet traffic.

So, to mark World Quantum Day, we’re looking at how today's best VPNs are gearing up for the post-quantum era. Fortunately, there are already a few forward-thinking VPN providers out there that are laying the groundwork for a secure future.

The post-quantum conundrum

Quantum computers work in a fundamentally different way from the computers we’re familiar with today.

Classical computers process information by encoding data into binary. Each bit of a binary string can contain either 1 or 0, and all of the calculations a classical computer can do are performed by performing operations on these binary strings.

It’s (relatively!) easy to map these states to the voltage level of electricity flowing through a circuit, which is how classical computers encode information on a physical level.

However, quantum computers encode data in a completely different way. Instead of using bits, quantum computers store information in “qubits”, or quantum bits.

Whereas a bit can only contain one state at a time, and can only contain one of two states, qubits can exist in multiple states simultaneously. These qubits are encoded using extremely delicate quantum states, which are difficult to maintain, meaning that current quantum computers have access to an extremely small memory set compared to regular computers.

These differences make quantum computers great at tackling problems that classical computers are bad at solving – and vice versa. One of these problems is factoring prime numbers.

We rely on the fact that it’s extremely difficult to factor large prime numbers to power asymmetric encryption algorithms, including RSA, which is responsible for securing a large proportion of traffic that flows through the internet on a daily basis.

RSA is so hard to brute force that it would take billions of years for a single key to be broken using current computing standards.

For a quantum computer with a large enough set of qubits to work with, it’s theorized that this brute-force period goes down to a couple of hours. While we’re not quite there yet, quantum research teams across institutions like IBM and Microsoft are constantly improving the maximum qubit set that quantum computers have access to.

How are VPNs preparing?

Breaking modern encryption standards has huge implications for the secure internet, including VPNs. They’re built to create secure, encrypted tunnels between your device and the internet, shielding your information from prying eyes.

For the most secure VPNs, making sure they’re one step ahead of the quantum curve is absolutely vital.

Of course, the threat of technology that could break modern encryption is being taken very seriously.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has held a series of competitions open to researchers and organisations throughout the world to gather proposed algorithms to replace our current encryption standards.

In August 2024, NIST released the strongest three algorithms that are expected to withstand quantum attacks.

That doesn’t mean the threat of Q-day is completely vanquished. It’s still going to take a lot of time for these algorithms to be widely implemented.

While many encryption projects, such as OpenSSL, have already rolled these quantum-resistant standards into their libraries, that’s only part of the solution. To be truly prepared against the threat of quantum computing, these quantum-resistant libraries need to be integrated into the software that we use daily.

That’s why post-quantum resistance isn’t just a marketing gimmick. It’s an essential part of data security going forward, so we’re happy to see that several VPN providers out there have already taken up the mantle.

Which VPNs are prepared for a post-quantum world?

Not every VPN is ready yet, but several major players are taking post-quantum security seriously:

• AdGuard VPN: Uses an optional hybrid quantum-resistant algorithm, much in the same way Google Chrome does. X25519 provides the underlying encryption, whereas ML-KEM768 adds quantum security on top. It’s implemented in all of Adguard’s VPN clients, but is disabled by default as it slightly slows down connections and increases battery consumption.
• ExpressVPN: Lightway, ExpressVPN’s proprietary VPN protocol, has wolfSSL libraries built into it, which use P256_KYBER_LEVEL1 for UDP and P521_KYBER_LEVEL5 for TCP. These protocols are built on top of the standard TLS encryption wolfSSL offers, ensuring that any potential flaw in these algorithms doesn’t affect the traditional encryption schemes used by Lightway. ExpressVPN’s quantum protection is enabled by default.
• NordVPN: Initially, NordVPN rolled out quantum-resistant algorithms for its WireGuard-based protocol, NordLynx, back in 2024 for Linux clients only. As of 2025, this upgrade has been rolled out on Windows, iOS, Android, and macOS clients, too. It’s currently optional, as its post-quantum encryption doesn’t work with certain key NordVPN features, including MeshNet.
• NymVPN: While NymVPN does not currently implement post-quantum encryption, it intends to roll out quantum-resistant key exchange across the entirety of its technology stack during 2025, protecting both the Nym blockchain and individual VPN connections from advances in quantum computing.
• Mullvad: After some initial experiments with post-quantum encryption support, Mullvad has rolled out quantum resistance by default on its Windows app whenever you connect with WireGuard. It uses ML-KEM to protect your data against quantum attacks, which is one of the standards proposed by NIST.

Quantum computing? "It brings a lot of advantages, no doubt about that, but it also brings the biggest security threat of all time: breaking encryption."

This is how Tuta Mail's Press Officer, Hanna Bozakov, describes what cryptographers usually refer to as Q-day – the turning point moment when quantum machines will be widespread enough to reveal all our online secrets.

Encrypton is what keeps our messages, conversations, and other activities we do on the internet private. It does so by scrambling the data into an unreadable form to prevent third-party access. Quantum computing will allow current encryption methods to be broken in minutes, thanks to their expanded computational capabilities.

Some companies, including the likes of Google, some of the best VPN services, and secure email providers have already started transitioning to quantum-resistant cryptography. Yet, more work is needed to make the wider internet infrastructure resilient to future threats.

For this year's World Quantum Day, we talked with Tuta, an early pioneer of quantum-safe encryption, to understand what's at stake and what needs to be done.

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We are used to seeing the cryptography world worrying about quantum computing. The enhanced computational power of these machines is expected to break current encryption methods, in fact, potentially putting in danger the internet's security and privacy infrastructure we all rely on.

The truth, however, is that encryption as we know it is already under threat. The UK, Sweden, Switzerland, and even the EU have lawmakers seeking to give law enforcement more power to access people's data, especially those encrypted.

But what if quantum computing ends up saving today's encryption from such a future instead?

What is an encryption backdoor?

The likes of WhatsApp and Signal use encryption to scramble data into an unreadable form to keep your online communications private.

Yet, as most crime moved from the offline to the online world, law enforcement and policymakers have been increasingly arguing that current encrypted services, like the best VPN and messaging apps, prevent them from catching the bad guys.

This led to a push from politicians and lawmakers to create what's known as an encryption backdoor – an entry point for authorthies to easily access people's online communications and activities.

ProtectEU is only the latest European effort to find a strategy for finding a safe manner to access encrypted data. This comes at the same time that Apple is fighting in court against the UK's request to make all users' iCloud data accessible at all times.

According to technologists, though, it's impossible to create an encryption backdoor that only law enforcement can benefit from. Encryption is either inaccessible or it isn't.

As Proton's Founder and CEO, Andy Yen, said during a discussion at RightsCon in Taiwan last February: "Encryption is math – it either adds up or it doesn't. You're not able to create a backdoor that will preserve encryption. It is simply not possible."

Raising awareness

With the threat of quantum computing breaking current encryption algorithms looming in the background, it's fair to say that encryption has never been more in danger.

Yet, Tuta Mail's Press Officer, Hanna Bozakov, believes that exactly the need for post-quantum encryption can help the industry's cause.

"Now that quantum computing is threatening the encryption that protects our infrastructure, there's a lot to talk about. All of this will also raise awareness among politicians for why we need encryption, and hopefully, this will influence them and stop them wanting to undermine encryption," she told TechRadar.

Put simply, the prospect of losing encryption altogether may turn this protection from an annoyance and an obstacle to something that needs to be protected no matter what.

An encrypted secure email service, Tuta is known to be very vocal in fighting against attempts to undermine the integrity of encryption.

The company regularly writes open letters to politicians explaining the importance of encryption for everybody's privacy and a functioning democracy.

Tuta is also a pioneer in the quantum-resistant cryptography space, launching its first research project in this space in 2020. It became the first encrypted email service to add a quantum-safe hybrid protocol on its software last year while still working to do the same for its drive tool.

Is the importance of quantum-safe encryption destined to be way more than a technical fix? Tuta hopes so.

Bozakov said: "Besides all the amazing progress that we will see from quantum computing, this will hopefully be another amazing side-effect – politicians fighting FOR encryption, not against it! We at Tuta would love to see this happening."

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• The UK Government has released new guidelines for post-quantum migration
• The timeline outlines a target of full migration by 2031
• SMEs should find this more simple due to updated guidance

The UK Government has released its guidelines on protecting technical systems from future quantum computers.

The National Cyber Security Centre set a timeline for the UK industry and government agencies to follow with key dates, firstly, by 2028 all organizations should have a defined set of migration goals, and an initial plan, and should have carried out a ‘full discovery exercise’ to assess infrastructure and determine what must be updated to post-quantum computing.

By 2031, organizations should carry out the highest priority migration activities, and have a refined plan for a thorough roadmap to completing the change. Finally, by 2035, migration should be completed for all systems, services, and products.

Large-scale threats

The UK Government labelled the move a ‘mass technology change that will take a number of years’ - but why is the migration needed?

The Government outlines that the threat to cryptography from future ‘large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers’ is now well understood, and that technical systems will need to evolve to reflect this.

“Quantum computers will be able to efficiently solve the hard mathematical problems that asymmetric public key cryptography (PKC) relies on to protect our networks today,“ the guidelines confirm.

“The primary mitigation to the risk this poses is to migrate to post-quantum cryptography (PQC); cryptography based on mathematical problems that quantum computers cannot solve efficiently.”

The report warns that the total financial cost of PQC migration could be ‘significant’, so organizations should budget accordingly, including for “preparatory activities” as well as the migration itself.

For SMEs, the PQC should be more straightforward and seamless, as services will typically be updated by vendors, but in the case of specialised software, PQC-compatable replacements or upgrades should be identified and deployed in line with the above timetable.

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• Quantum computers could crack encryption, putting even printers at risk
• HP’s new models include chips to resist quantum-level firmware attacks
• They also support Zero Trust and early-stage BIOS protection

Quantum computing is widely seen as the next major leap in technology, but also poses a security threat, as it could break the encryption systems which protect everything from online banking to government data.

The idea that vast amounts of sensitive information could be cracked in seconds by a future quantum machine is understandably a big concern, and even printers could be at risk - and to address this issue, HP has announced what it calls the world’s first printers designed to protect against such attacks.

The new 8000 Series of A3 printers, including the HP Color LaserJet Enterprise MFP 8801, Mono MFP 8601, and LaserJet Pro Mono SFP 8501 (which can output up to 70ppm), include updated ASIC chips designed with quantum-resistant cryptography, which HP says also allow digital signature verification for firmware protection.

Updated ASIC chips

“Without quantum resilience, a printer facing a quantum attack at the firmware level would be fully exposed through malicious firmware updates, giving the attacker stealthy, persistent and total control of the device," the company said.

HP also claims the hardware is designed to secure BIOS and early-stage firmware, limiting the risk of manipulation through fake updates. The new models take zero trust security approaches too, helping companies manage their print fleets more securely.

There's no word on pricing or availability of the new printers yet, but this move follows HP’s earlier introduction of business PCs with firmware protection against quantum threats. The company said it plans to apply quantum-resistant cryptographic algorithms across both its PC and printer product lines.

HP also notes because many print contracts run for several years, businesses should consider this timeline in their next purchasing decisions to avoid future compliance gaps.

While quantum computing it’s still some way off achieving its full potential, the likes of Google and Microsoft have made a number of breakthroughs in this field.

Most recently, Microsoft took the wraps off Majorana 1, its first-of-its-kind quantum chip with topological core architecture.

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AdGuard just became the latest VPN provider to add quantum-resistant encryption to its software.

Specifically, AdGuard VPN now integrates a combination of classic encryption methods with one of the post-quantum algorithm standards released by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in August last year. The feature was rolled out on macOS and Windows on March 6, 2025, with the mobile apps expected to get the upgrade later in the month.

The firm now follows in the footsteps of Google Chrome and some of the best VPN providers on the market by upgrading its encryption protections to ensure user data is protected against new threats posed by quantum computing.

The need for quantum-proof encryption

"We are on the brink of the quantum technology era, and data protection must stay ahead of the threats, not just react to them. By implementing post-quantum cryptography, we are laying the foundation for a secure internet in the future," said Denis Vyazovoy, AdGuard VPN CPO.

Experts predict that it's just a matter of time before quantum computers break current RSA-based encryption methods. This is mainly because these machines will have the ability to process computations that today's computers can't handle, within minutes.

Recent releases such as Google's Willow quantum chip and Microsoft’s Majorana 1 chip, AdGuard explains, "are pushing quantum computing closer to solving complex real-world problems." This may be a portent of what the industry has long feared – that current encryption will soon become obsolete.

Quantum computers are still some years away from becoming mainstream, but cybercriminals are thought to have already adopted "harvest now, decrypt later" attacks. These involve malicious actors collecting encrypted data and decrypting it once quantum machines are up for the task.

It's exactly with this in mind that NIST experts released the first sets of quantum-safe algorithms last year designed for specific tasks, namely protection for key exchanges (ML-KEM) and identity authentication (ML-DSA and SLH-DSA).

As mentioned earlier, AdGuard VPN has implemented a hybrid encryption approach that includes the classic X25519 elliptic curve algorithm with the post-quantum Kyber768-based ML-KEM768.

This dual-layer encryption approach, the provider explains, "ensures robust protection against both current and future risks, enabling secure session keys that are resilient to quantum computing advancements."

This is exactly what the likes of Google, Signal, Tuta Mail, ExpressVPN, NordVPN, Mullvad VPN, Windscribe, and PureVPN have also done.

Put simply, having a hybrid encryption method ensures that tried and tested algorithms always protect your data, even if the post-quantum protection fails.

If you're using the latest version of AdGuard VPN on desktop, you should already be able to enable this feature through the settings menu. This advanced security option is also expected to land on the iOS and Android VPN apps in the next couple of weeks.

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example:1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service).2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad.We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

• Google Cloud now offers PQC algorithms for digital signatures
• The move comes as part of Google Cloud quantum-safe roadmap
• The feature is available in preview now, with more PQC changes to come

Google Cloud has taken an additional step to secure its platform from the threat posed by quantum computing to public-key cryptography by announcing the availability of quantum-safe digital signatures in preview in the Google Cloud Key Management Service (KMS).

Theoretically, quantum computers will be able to crack most modern encryption algorithms in a matter of hours, but the viability of such a system is still at least a decade away by most expert estimates.

This does present threats today, however, with cybercriminals stealing vulnerable encrypted data today in order to decrypt it when ‘Q-Day’, or the day when the availability of cryptographically-relevant quantum computers arrives. This has necessitated the development of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) to secure data against ‘harvest-now-decrypt-later’ attacks.

Securing the future of digital signatures

Quantum-safe digital signatures are just one step in Google Cloud’s roadmap towards a fully PQC platform.

For digital signatures specifically, quantum brings the threat of forgery and tampering, with Google Cloud highlighting that working to resolve these threats now will help build a more resilient infrastructure and inspire other platforms to do the same.

Google Cloud has also revealed in the announcement that to help enforce transparency and code-auditability, the quantum-related software implementations will be available as part of Google’s open-source cryptographic libraries BoringCrypto and Tink.

This update to digital signatures specifically implements the ML-DSA-65 and SLH-DSA-SHA2-128S PQC algorithms in line with NIST standards. Google Cloud will also be implementing new PQC algorithms and techniques into its Hardware Security Modules (HSM).

Google Cloud customers will be able to use the latest PQC algorithms in Cloud KMS and provide feedback on their implementation, and suggestions on other specific cryptographic requirements. Essentially, the use of Cloud KMS’s latest algorithms acts as a testbed for building and expanding the availability of PQC across the Google Cloud platform.

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• Microsoft set to rival Google, IBM with first-of-its-kind quantum chip with topological core architecture

• Microsoft unveils a quantum chip with a Topological Core for stable and scalable qubits
• Majorana 1 features eight topological qubits, aiming for a million-qubit scale
• Breakthrough is comparable to how semiconductors revolutionized modern computing

Microsoft has unveiled Majorana 1, a quantum chip built on a Topological Core architecture, marking a huge step forward in its quantum computing efforts.

The company says this new chip, which positions the tech giant alongside rivals Google and IBM in the race for large-scale quantum computing, will lead to devices capable of solving industrial-scale problems in years rather than decades.

The chip is based on a topoconductor, a newly-engineered material that can observe and control Majorana particles - a discovery Microsoft represents no less than a new state of matter, which it has used to create a more stable and scalable qubit in a breakthroughit compares to how semiconductors transformed modern computing.

A clear path for scaling

“We took a step back and said ‘OK, let’s invent the transistor for the quantum age. What properties does it need to have?’” said Chetan Nayak, Microsoft technical fellow. “And that’s really how we got here – it’s the particular combination, the quality and the important details in our new materials stack that have enabled a new kind of qubit and ultimately our entire architecture.”

Microsoft adds Majorana 1 offers a clear path to scaling quantum systems. For now, it has eight topological qubits on a single chip, marking the first step toward its goal of reaching one million qubits. Achieving this scale will be essential if quantum computing is to drive advancements in industries such as healthcare, environmental science, and manufacturing.

“Whatever you’re doing in the quantum space needs to have a path to a million qubits. If it doesn’t, you’re going to hit a wall before you get to the scale at which you can solve the really important problems that motivate us,” Nayak said. “We have actually worked out a path to a million.”

The chip is built using a materials stack made from indium arsenide and aluminum, designed and fabricated atom by atom. The Topological Core architecture resists errors at the hardware level, making it more stable than current approaches.

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Popular VPN provider, ExpressVPN, has just taken a step further in its post-quantum transition, integrating the latest future-proof encryption technology across all its apps.

ML-KEM, one of the three quantum-resistant encryption standards released by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in August last year, has replaced the Kyber algorithm on ExpressVPN's proprietary Lightway VPN protocol.

This move further consolidates the company's commitment to securing users' data against new threats posed by quantum computing. Already one of the best VPN services on the market, ExpressVPN was among the first to add post-quantum protection in October 2023. The new release now makes ExpressVPN an early adopter of the industry standard of post-quantum encryption.

From Kyber to ML-KEM: what's changed?

"Encryption is always evolving, and so are we. When Kyber emerged as a trusted frontrunner in the race to secure the post-quantum world, we integrated it into Lightway to ensure your data stayed ahead of potential threats. Now, with ML-KEM – the newly minted NIST standard – we’re taking that protection even further," said Pete Membrey, Chief Research Officer at ExpressVPN, in the official announcement.

Membrey explains that ML-KEM is built on Kyber's foundation and is now the standard for cryptographic key exchanges, meaning exchanging information across a public network, like VPNs.

The new algorithm results from years of work, designed to defend against future quantum threats. ML-KEM has also managed to amass the consensus of leading cryptographers worldwide during this time. The most important, perhaps, its design integrates seamlessly into Lightway, with ExpressVPN promising that speed and reliability won't be affected.

"Lightway is built to evolve, and ML-KEM represents the next step in its journey," said Membrey, adding that the VPN protocol now uses NIST Security Level 5 key sizes for both TCP and UDP, "ensuring your connection is harder to break."

Upgrading to ML-KEM wasn't the only change for ExpressVPN and, well, its Lightway protocol.

ExpressVPN also decided to migrate from the Open Quantum Safe (OQS) team’s implementation of Kyber/ML-KEM to WolfSSL. For the less techie out there, WolfSSL is an open-source library used to secure digital communications between devices, among other things.

WolfSSL introduced a few advantages. For starters, it implements ML-KEM perfectly, Membrey explains, allowing Lightway to deliver solid performances across all platforms. It's also optimized for speed and power efficiency thanks to a lighter and simpler infrastructure. This will enable Lightway to keep delivering low-latency and high-speed connections

"Unlike experimental libraries, WolfSSL provides enterprise-grade support and regular updates, making it the perfect fit for Lightway’s ongoing evolution," Membrey added.

You can now benefit from ExpressVPN's new post-quantum protections simply by upgrading to the latest version of the VPN app. The update has already been rolled out across all major platforms.

The need for quantum-proof VPNs

With quantum computers believed to become fully operational as early as 2030, it's just a matter of time before current encryption methods become obsolete.

Today, VPNs often use RSA-based key exchanges to ensure that your connections remain private between you and the receiver. Quantum computers, however, can process computations that today's computers can't handle within minutes, potentially breaking current encryption protections.

This is where the NIST's quantum-safe standards come in. This work is crucial to support VPN providers, but also messaging apps, encrypted email, and any other tech company integrating some forms of encryption into their products.

While most VPN providers are still figuring out how to implement quantum-resistant algorithms into their software without losing performance, some services like ExpressVPN already offer such protection.

These are Mullvad VPN, Windscribe, and PureVPN. These providers are also in the process of replacing their current quantum-resistant protection with the new NIST standard.

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example:1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service).2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad.We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

Quantum computing will soon be a reality, and that's bad news for all of the encryption algorithms the world relies on.What would take a modern supercomputer hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years to crack can be solved by a quantum computer in just days or hours.

What’s more, the day where that's possible, known as Q-Day, could realistically be in the next ten years.

The worst part is that because we know this day is coming, anything that is not encrypted to a quantum standard is already at risk. It doesn’t matter if you use the strongest public key cryptography you can get your hands on - if it is stolen now, it's going to be cracked.

It's time to think about quantum cryptography

Taking two small numbers and multiplying them is fairly easy, as is trying to work out the prime factors from their sum, but the bigger the numbers get, the harder this is. This is how Michael Osborne, CTO for IBM Quantum Safe and Security Research, explained the basis of our encryption algorithms today at a recent event held at IBM Research Zurich.

The encryption software we use today works by having such a large number that finding the two prime factors used is very difficult, and near impossible with current technology. Up until the development of quantum computers, this has been a fairly reliable method for keeping our data safe in storage or while it makes its journey across the internet to customers and users. And while quantum computing will be a technology that rivals the revolutionary nature of AI, its ability to find the prime factors of an integer will cut through encryption like a hot knife through binary.

While this may seem like an inflammatory statement, it will soon be a reality - and it seems that organizations are not waking up to this fact. The European Union has introduced the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) which will not only require EU entities to maintain a set standard of security, but also companies that interact with or handle the data of companies within the EU. This effectively makes these regulations global, with organizations needing to be DORA compliant by 2025, and CRA compliant by 2027, or face huge fines and restrictions.

This is now the critical time to become quantum safe, Osborne says, as quantum computers will likely become a danger to current encryption methods between 2030 and 2040, meaning we have around 5 years to scrap the encryption the world relies on, and change to one that is resistant to quantum decryption.

To this end, IBM has contributed heavily towards the development of post-quantum cryptography standards, with the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) introducing two IBM algorithms as the first standards of this kind - SLH-DSA and FN-DSA.

2025 is the year for change

“If we want our data to remain confidential, we have to act now,” says Dreamlab Technologies founder and CEO, Nicholas Mayencourt, further stating that while we don’t know exactly when Q-Day will be, the entire global supply chain currently relies on vulnerable encryption techniques. Everything, from payments to SIM cards, relies on encryption at some stage of its use, and “we are failing on a global scale to recognize the risk.”

Threat actors seem to be more aware of this than organizations, with the advent of harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks striking businesses in increasing numbers. The basis of the attack is that large amounts of data encrypted using vulnerable algorithms can be stolen now, with the plan of decrypting it once Q-Day arrives and quantum computers are commercially available. But despite quantum-safe encryption being available now the task of switching is monumental.

“Imagine trying to change all the windows in a city with the people still inside the buildings,” is the thought experiment Jaime Gómez García, Head of Quantum Technologies at Santander, offers. The most difficult thing to comprehend, Jaime says, is that we have known these algorithms have been vulnerable for the last 10 years without much being done.

This is especially relevant when considering the true lifespan of some products. For example, a car may be manufactured and expected to run for 10 years before being scrapped, but in many cases it could still be running in 15 to 20 years, by which time the digital signature of the car’s firmware that was built on a safe algorithm at the time, is now vulnerable to being stolen.

Jaime and Nicolas both agree that a lack of information on the threat that quantum computing poses to cryptography is to blame for the lack of migration and change, but regulations such as CRA and DORA are providing momentum.

“We can educate everybody how important cryptography is for the society we live in,” to help push organizations to begin planning for change, Jaime states.

When it comes to starting the work of adopting quantum-safe algorithms, “we have all the ingredients necessary” Nicolas states, adding, “those who embrace the opportunity now will benefit most.”

When asked what needs to be done in 2025 to ensure the transition to quantum safe is successful, Jaime posits that the effort is not one of each organization, but a shared effort by everyone who uses encryption at some point in their daily lives. “Cryptography is not something that is competitive, but collaborative,” Jaime says, further noting that smaller businesses that rely on services provided by enterprises are being put at risk by the lack of movement.

Nicolas echoes Jaime’s sentiments and emphasizes the point about collaboration, suggesting the discussion on quantum-safe encryption needs to be open and accessible to everyone, not just the policymakers and professionals.

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• Google unveils Willow quantum chip, promises major leaps forward
• Willow can outperform previous generations of chips across a range of benchmarks
• The chip has the potential for exponential error reduction - a key milestone

Google has unveiled a new quantum chip capable of exponential error reduction - a huge milestone in the journey towards quantum advantage.

The release of Willow, marks the second milestone in Google’s journey towards creating a large error-corrected quantum computer.

When tested using the random circuit sampling benchmark, Willow was able to complete the benchmark in five minutes - just slightly faster than the world's current fastest supercomputer, which would take 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years.

One small step for quantum computation

The chip was made at Google’s purpose-built Santa Barbara lab, with Willow housing 105 qubits. A qubit is quantum’s equivalent of a ‘bit’ used in classical computing, with the difference being that a qubit can exist as both a binary one and zero at the same time thanks to a qubit's ability to exist in a state known as superposition.

Willow’s qubits are also capable of retaining their state of excitation, their ‘one’ state in binary terms, for almost 100 microseconds - five times longer than previous generations of chips produced by Google.

While the benchmarks performed by Willow are impressive, they are just a step in the journey towards creating a viable quantum computer that provides an actual advantage over a classic computer. Current quantum computers may be faster at solving certain problems, but classic computing is better optimized for a wider range of tasks that are not only scientifically viable, but also commercially.

In a blog postannouncing the launch, Hartmut Neven, Founder and Lead, Google Quantum AI, states, “On the one hand, we’ve run the RCS benchmark, which measures performance against classical computers but has no known real-world applications. On the other hand, we’ve done scientifically interesting simulations of quantum systems, which have led to new scientific discoveries but are still within the reach of classical computers.”

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Quantum is the next logical step in the evolution of computing, and will define a new era in technology the same way that AI has defined the present.

Many current problems that would take thousands of hours to solve with traditional computers will, likely in the next decade, be possible to solve in hours.

IBM, responsible for the invention of the hard-disk drive and dynamic random access memory, is looking to pioneer the future of quantum computing - and invited TechRadar Pro to Switzerland to find out more.

What's happening now?

IBM has already identified a number of critical sectors where quantum computing could have profound benefits. The IBM quantum network is one of the largest in the world, with over 250 members, over 600,000 users, over 3000 papers published, and more than 10 quantum computers being used to research and innovate across materials science, healthcare, high-energy physics, and more.

Alessandro Curioni, VP IBM Research Europe and Africa and Director of IBM Research Zurich, described how, by simulating how atoms and molecules interact using quantum computing, it will soon be possible to synthesize new materials to be used across a wide range of industries.

In the health sector, IBM's has contributed to research with its partners that has identified the potential application of using quantum computing to develop cell-centric therapeutics able to understand how individual cells interact and behave with diseased cells, and medications, allowing for the development of new, highly targeted immunotherapy techniques.

Moreover, introducing multiple variables when simulating with large datasets is typically something that would reduce a traditional computer to a crawl, especially when simulating the effects of climate change or damage to ecosystems. However Curioni believes that quantum will be the key to “optimizing our way of life while remaining sustainable.”

Curioni also notes that “the intersection in the synergy between quantum computing and machine learning” will have profound benefits for gathering the right representations from large amounts of data, “making the problems that were impossible, possible.”

What's next?

“In the future, these days are going to be remembered as the days that changed computing, and the world,” is the message from Curioni. The IBM road map predicts that we won’t see the full benefits of quantum computing until beyond 2033, but that doesn’t mean breakthroughs aren’t already being made.

IBM has developed numerous innovations in both the hardware and software technologies involved in quantum computing in order to keep pace with their predictive road map, with Curioni stating, “2026 will be the year where we will be able to demonstrate quantum advantage,” with IBM hoping to deliver a fully error-corrected quantum system by 2029 ahead of the transformational era of 2030.

Late in 2023, IBM unveiled Quantum System Two - a modular architecture to enable scalable quantum-centric supercomputing. This architecture integrates a hybrid cloud computing service between the user and the hardware, allowing the user to run both quantum and classical workflows simultaneously.

While traditional computers are extremely efficient at multiplying two numbers, they struggle with factorization, which is exactly what quantum computers excel at. These systems will therefore allow for highly complex workloads, simulations and data sets to be run far more efficiently, saving power and resources while also enhancing productivity.

Quantum's advantages in factorization have already rendered many of today's encryption methods obsolete, with state-sponsored groups and financially motivated threat actors stealing sensitive encrypted data now, in the hopes of decrypting it once quantum-computing becomes commercially viable. For this reason, IBM developed the first quantum-encryption standards used by NIST to protect against harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks.

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As computing shifts from single-chip processors to multi-chip systems, traditional communication methods, such as Network-on-Chip (NoC) and Network-in-Package (NiP), are becoming less efficient. To address these limitations, scientists are exploring terahertz frequencies for high-speed data transfer, despite the challenge of noise interference, which complicates data decoding.

A research team from universities in Australia and the US has been studying wireless communication at the chip level and looking at ways to reduce noise. By applying Floquet engineering, a quantum technique that manipulates electron behavior, they found they were able to improve terahertz signal detection.

When implemented in a two-dimensional semiconductor quantum well (2DSQW), the approach successfully mitigated noise and boosted signal clarity. The team’s findings suggest that this method could pave the way for more effective and reliable wireless communication between chiplets, offering a potential solution for the efficiency challenges faced in multi-chip systems.

Wide-ranging applications

The team also developed a dual-signaling system that uses two receivers to monitor noise levels and adjust signals in real-time, further reducing error rates.

Writing forTech Xplore, researchers Kosala Herath and Malin Premaratne explained, “By overcoming the challenges of noise and signal degradation, our dual-signaling technique marks a key advancement in developing high-speed, noise-resistant wireless communication for chiplets. This innovation brings us closer to creating more efficient, scalable, and adaptable computing systems for the technologies of tomorrow.”

Their findings were published in the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications.

As we previously reported, universities are also looking at ways of boosting the potential of terahertz technology in order to unlock bandwidth for future telecommunications.

The University of Adelaide has developed a polarization multiplexer that doubles data transmission capacity at terahertz frequencies, while researchers at the University of Notre Dame showcased a silicon topological beamformer chip capable of splitting a single terahertz signal into 54 smaller beams.

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