“People in the know will be like: ‘oh s—, it’s coming,’” says Bluvstein, who recently co-founded Oratomic, which aims to build the first useful quantum computer. “The world is currently, in my view, not prepared.”
The paper has not yet been peer-reviewed, and many of the assumptions that the authors make are “untested,” says Jeff Thompson, an associate professor at Princeton and CEO of atomic quantum computing startup Logiqal. It’s “very easy” to reduce the size of the computer “if you just assume better qubits,” Thompson adds.
On March 25, the week before the publication of the Google and Caltech papers, Google announced a timeline to secure its systems against quantum computers by 2029—six years before NIST’s 2035 deadline.
AI leaders have repeatedly promised that AI would accelerate scientific progress. “The gains to quality of life from AI driving faster scientific progress … will be enormous,” wrote Sam Altman in 2025. Beyond cracking encryption protocols, quantum computing researchers hope the new technology could help make discoveries in physics, and design new drugs and materials. Someday, they may help run more powerful and efficient AI models. But according to Westerbaan, the development of a quantum computer before the transition to post-quantum encryption could lead to data leaks, extortion, and businesses being taken offline.
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