Srinivas Shekar, Founder and CEO, Pantherun Technologies.
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The iconic boulder scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the most memorable in cinematic history. Protagonist Indiana Jones lifts a golden idol off an altar within an ancient temple in the Peruvian jungle, gingerly replacing it with a bag of sand. Despite Jones' efforts, the theft triggers the release of an 80-ton boulder that chases him down within an inch of his life.
In July 2025, I wrote about a similarly imposing threat rolling toward all of us: the quantum conundrum in which quantum computing becomes powerful enough to overcome our current data encryption standards. I discussed how it will do that and why that should matter to every person.
The quantum threat has accelerated significantly since then, so I felt it was time to have a fresh look at the current state of affairs and what we're doing about it.
I don't want to be alarmist, but when an apocalyptic spheroid is bearing down on your back, sometimes it’s okay to be a bit loud about it. Here's what's happened since July 2025:
In February 2026, researchers at Sydney-based quantum architecture engineering firm Iceberg Quantum released the results of their work with a new approach to designing quantum computers, which could reduce the number of qubits necessary to break RSA-2048 encryption from 940,000 to under 100,000—and, in some cases, as few as 22,000.
A qubit, or "quantum bit," is the fundamental unit of quantum computing. Unlike the bits we use in classical computing, which signify either 0 or 1, qubits can "superposition" as both states simultaneously. RSA-2048 is a widely used internet encryption standard used for secure identity verification and decryption key exchange.
This matters because the key challenge of quantum computing is the complexity of building stable qubit systems. Dramatically reducing the number of qubits needed to break RSA-2048 simultaneously lowers the engineering, cooling, error-correction and power challenges needed to do so.
While having fewer qubits to manage is beneficial, it doesn't quite solve the inherent problem of qubit instability. Qubits rely on delicate quantum states that are easily disturbed by heat, electromagnetic radiation, vibration and even cosmic rays. When a qubit is disturbed, it's likely to produce computational errors. For that reason, it's necessary to constantly check qubits for errors—a process that dramatically slows down computation.
In September 2025, Boston-based QuEra, together with collaborators at Harvard and Yale, developed a new framework for quantum error correction called Algorithmic Fault Tolerance (AFT), which speeds up the process of error correction by 10x to 30x. QuEra chief commercial officer Yuval Boger told Tech Monitor that the "reduction in time can turn a calculation that used to take a year into one that takes five days."
Due to the instability of qubits, researchers combine anywhere from five to thousands of physical qubits into one computing unit known as a logical qubit, which synchronizes and error corrects its cohort of physical qubits. In theory, this allows greater accuracy of calculations. Until recently, however, this just introduced more noise in real-world attempts, making the models unreliable.
In September 2025, for the first time, Colorado-based quantum computing company Infleqtion executed a variant of Shor's quantum decryption algorithm using logical qubits, marking the first time logical qubits outperformed physical-only qubits on a cryptographic task. (Shor's algorithm is one of the quantum algorithms threatening to undermine current encryption standards.) This marked a critical milestone on the road to fault-tolerant quantum computing.
Despite the significant advances above and others, many problems must still be solved before quantum computing arrives in earnest. However, a clear "sign of the times" worth observing is that big tech companies and governments are working diligently to be prepared for the quantum conundrum.
In April 2026, Meta published its post-quantum migration playbook. Just a few weeks prior, Google established a timeline for its own post-quantum cryptography (PQC) migration, setting 2029 as the critical strategic deadline.
That jibes with the U.S.'s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the U.K.'s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)'s respective mandates of 2030 to 2035. By the time you read this, Google may have already rolled out its PCQ solutions to at least some Android 17 users.
Basic security concerns aside, the quantum conundrum also has real market impact. In January 2026, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued federal procurement guidance for PQC, requiring agencies to prioritize quantum-resistant products in new purchases, to inventory cryptographic assets and to ensure vendors demonstrate PQC readiness. This ultimately means that you can't sell to U.S. government civilian agencies or critical infrastructure organizations anymore without addressing PQC.
As I outlined in my original article, companies working to secure their data have a number of options, including encryption upgrade, PQC models, out of band solutions, quantum key distribution and doing away with vulnerable encryption keys altogether via keyless encryption.
Although quantum computing may sometimes still feel like a faraway theoretical concept, I assure you that this is real, and it's happening faster than you think. If you care for sensitive data of any kind, it's time to start exploring alternate encryption methods before the quantum computing era arrives in full.
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