The country is consumed right now with debating artificial intelligence and whether increasingly powerful AI systems could escape human control. Those are valid concerns, but lawmakers are overlooking another technological threat: quantum computing. Unlike AI safety debates, this risk could render today’s encryption obsolete – compromising everything from emails to financial transactions to government communications and military systems.
Quantum computers harness unusual properties of quantum physics to solve certain problems far faster than conventional computers. That potential offers major scientific and economic advances. But a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could crack widely used forms of encryption protecting sensitive digital information globally.
This threat differs from AI safety concerns. Quantum computers won’t develop goals or outsmart humans. The risk is simple: extraordinarily fast quantum machines could break the mathematical “locks” securing data.
Researchers now believe breaking some encryption may require fewer resources than previously thought. This spring, Caltech spinout Oratomic published research suggesting a cryptographically relevant quantum computer could need dramatically fewer physical resources than earlier estimates. Google has accelerated its own preparations, setting 2029 as its target for transitioning to post-quantum cryptography.
To use a rough analogy, researchers are increasingly asking whether a task once thought to require every lightbulb in Chicago might instead be accomplished with the power needed for one office building. If a company like Google, with some of the world’s deepest quantum and cryptographic expertise, is preparing for 2029, Congress should treat that deadline seriously.
The federal government has begun responding. The National Security Agency has selected quantum-resistant algorithms for National Security Systems and is moving classified and other sensitive systems toward its CNSA 2.0 standards. In June, the White House accelerated the broader federal transition, directing high value federal systems to adopt post-quantum cryptography for key establishment by the end of 2030 and digital signatures by the end of 2031.
But some dangers exist now. Foreign adversaries can steal encrypted information today, store it, and wait until they possess the computing power to decrypt it later. Cybersecurity experts call this “harvest now, decrypt later.” The White House identified that threat in its June order. Intelligence reports, military communications, corporate secrets, financial information, and other data that must remain private for years face risk long before a quantum computer capable of decrypting it exists.