The rate of progress marks a steep acceleration. Since Peter Shorās 1994 revelation that quantum computers could theoretically break RSA, resource estimates have plummetedāfrom one billion qubits in 2012 to just one million today.
Gartner VP Analyst Bart Willemsen warned that āquantum computing will weaken asymmetric cryptography by 2029.ā Given that cryptographic upgrades often span multiple years, he urged organizations to begin strategic planning now, especially for infrastructure with hard-coded crypto dependencies. Many developers, he noted, lack deep familiarity with cryptographic libraries and hash functions, making early inventory, performance testing, and system mapping essential to any realistic PQC roadmap.
Enterprise security implications
For security leaders, the research highlights two immediate priorities. First, encrypted communications using RSA or similar algorithms face acute āstore now, decrypt laterā risks, where intercepted data could be decrypted once quantum computers achieve sufficient scale. Google has implemented NIST-approved ML-KEM across Chrome and internal systems, establishing a benchmark for securing web traffic, VPNs, and messaging platforms.Ā
