Microsoft's 100,000-qubit topological processor and Google's error-correction breakthrough have moved quantum computing from theoretical threat to engineering timeline. The encryption protecting.
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In February 2025, Microsoft announced its Majorana 1 topological quantum chip, designed to scale to one million stable qubits without the exponential error accumulation that has plagued physical qubit systems. In March 2026, Google's Willow follow-up chip achieved 100,000 physical qubits with error rates below the surface code threshold — meaning logical qubits (which are what actually compute) can now be encoded reliably. The significance: breaking RSA-2048 encryption — the standard that protects internet banking, government communications, and cloud data — requires approximately 4,000 logical qubits running Shor's algorithm for around 10 days. Neither Microsoft nor Google can do this yet. But the engineering trajectory, for the first time, makes a 'cryptographically relevant' quantum computer a 10-15 year engineering challenge rather than a 50-year physics impossibility. Governments and banks are now in a genuine race to deploy post-quantum cryptography (PQC) before adversaries with quantum capability use it.
Three parallel breakthroughs converged. Microsoft's Majorana approach uses topological qubits — exotic quantum states that are intrinsically protected from certain error types — theoretically requiring far fewer physical qubits per logical qubit than standard superconducting approaches. Google's surface code results demonstrated that qubit error rates below 10^-3 make error correction self-correcting rather than compounding — passing a theoretical threshold that had been targeted for 20 years. IBM's quantum volume roadmap, hitting 16,000 in 2025, showed that near-term quantum advantage in optimisation problems (not yet cryptography) is achievable with current hardware. The three companies' announcements within 18 months of each other created a convergence of proof points that moved the field from 'promising' to 'scheduled'.
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Chetan Nayak leads Microsoft Azure Quantum and authored the Majorana 1 announcement. Hartmut Neven founded Google Quantum AI and oversees the Willow chip. Jay Gambetta, IBM's VP of Quantum Computing, runs the IBM quantum hardware roadmap. On the cryptography defence side: Dustin Moody at NIST chairs the post-quantum cryptography (PQC) standardisation effort that produced FIPS 203/204/205. Lily Chen (also NIST) leads the migration guidance for federal systems. Vidya Sagar at India's C-DAC heads the National Quantum Mission's cryptography subcommittee — India's institutional response to PQC migration. Chinese efforts are led by Pan Jianwei (USTC), whose lab built the Jiuzhang photonic quantum computer. The cryptography community is in a slow-motion handover; the question is whether public and private deployment can keep pace.
100,000: physical qubits in Google's Willow chip in March 2026. 4,000: logical qubits needed to break RSA-2048 with Shor's algorithm. 10 days: estimated runtime to crack a single RSA-2048 key on such a computer. 10^-3: per-gate error rate threshold for self-correcting surface code. 1 million: stable qubits Microsoft targets by 2030 via Majorana. 16,000: IBM quantum volume hit in 2025. 1977: year RSA was invented by Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman. 2024: NIST finalised FIPS 203 / 204 / 205 — the first PQC standards. 5-10 years: typical time for governments to migrate complex systems to PQC. 20+ years: shelf life of classified government communications now at 'harvest now, decrypt later' risk. ₹6,000 crore: outlay for India's National Quantum Mission (2023-2031). 4: hubs the NQM has set up across IISc, IIT-Madras, IIT-Bombay and IIT-Delhi.
RSA encryption, invented in 1977 by Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman, underpins virtually every secure internet transaction: your bank transfer, your tax return, your WhatsApp backup, your medical records in a hospital cloud system. It works because factoring large numbers is mathematically hard — a classical computer would take longer than the age of the universe to factor a 2048-bit number. A quantum computer running Shor's algorithm could do it in days. This is not theoretical: it is a mathematical certainty contingent only on engineering progress. The 'harvest now, decrypt later' threat is already active: nation-state intelligence services (US NSA, China's MSS, possibly others) are almost certainly collecting encrypted data today that they plan to decrypt once cryptographically capable quantum computers exist. Classified military communications with a 20-year secrecy window, medical records, financial transaction histories — all are at risk from data that exists today. For India, with its National Quantum Mission and its parallel urgency to protect Aadhaar, UPI, and government communications, this is not a future problem. The long-term impact is clear: the timeline is 10-15 years, deployment of post-quantum cryptography takes 5-10 years for complex government systems, and the lesson is that the window to act is now.
Chronology
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MIT mathematician Peter Shor publishes the algorithm that can factor large integers exponentially faster on a quantum computer — theoretically breaking RSA. The encryption threat is formalised.
Google's Sycamore processor completes a calculation in 200 seconds that classical supercomputers would take 10,000 years. IBM disputes the comparison but the milestone stands.
US NIST releases FIPS 203, 204, 205 — the first post-quantum cryptography standards ready for deployment. Kyber and Dilithium algorithms now have government endorsement.
First physical implementation of topological qubits; Microsoft claims path to million-qubit fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2030.
Landmark achievement: Google demonstrates error-corrected logical qubits at scale, crossing the theoretical threshold for scalable fault-tolerant quantum computing.
Step 1/5 events
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