2022 Billington Cybersecurity Summit
Takeaways from an Important Discussion about the Future of Encryption
By Duncan Jones
In September, nearly 200 senior cybersecurity leaders from around the world convened to discuss the state of U.S. cybersecurity at the. Topics around cybersecurity were varied and included discussions about moral asymmetry of today鈥檚 global threat actors, lessons learned from Ukraine and general discussions around all things that 鈥渒eep us up at night鈥 concerning cyber threats.
As a speaker at the Summit, I wanted to take a moment to share my take-aways from an important discussion that took place during our breakout session, 鈥淔uture of Encryption: Moving to a Quantum Resistant World.鈥 My esteemed fellow panelists from NSA, NIST, CMU and AWS exchanged insights as to where U.S. government agencies stand in their preparation for current and future threats to encryption, the likely hurdles they face, and the resources that exist to assist in the transition. Those responsible for moving their agency to a quantum-resistant world should find the following insights worth considering.
Getting Out of The Starting Gate
With the prospect of powerful quantum computers breaking known encryption methods on the horizon and with federal mandate now in place, the good news is that quantum-proof encryption is finally being discussed. The not-so-good-news is that it isn鈥檛 clear to cybersecurity practitioners what they need to do first. Understanding the threat is not nearly as difficult as understanding the timing, which seems to have left agency personnel at the starting gate of a planning process fraught with challenges 鈥 and urgency.
Why is the timeline so difficult to establish? Because there is no way of knowing when a quantum-based attack will take place. The Quantum-safe Security Working Group of the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) chose the date, April 14, 2030, to represent 鈥淵2Q,鈥 also known as 鈥淨-Day鈥 鈥 the moment secure IT infrastructure becomes vulnerable to the threat of a fault-tolerant quantum computer running Shor鈥檚 algorithm. The Biden Administration based its implementation timeline on the day that NIST announced the four winning algorithms for standardization. Then there is the 鈥渉ack now, decrypt later鈥 timeline which suggests that quantum-related attacks may already be underway.
Regardless of the final timeline or potential drivers, one thing that was clear to the panel attendees was that they need to start the transition now.
The Need to 鈥楩uture-Proof鈥
I get this question often and was not disappointed when one attendee asked, 鈥淗ow can I convince my agency leadership that migrating to quantum-proof encryption is a priority when they are still trying to tackle basic cyber threats?鈥
The panelists responded and agreed that the U.S. government鈥檚 data storage requirements are unique in that classification dates are typically 20 years. This means that systems in development today, that are typically fielded over the next 10 years, will actually have a storage shelf life of 30 years minimum. Those systems need to be 鈥渇uture-proofed鈥 today, a term that should be effective when trying to convince agency leaders of the priority. 聽
The need to future-proof is driven by a variety of scenarios, such as equipment and software upgrades. In general, it takes a long time (and perhaps even longer for government entities) to upgrade or change equipment, software, etc. It will take an extremely long time to update all of the software that has cryptography in place.
The panelists also agreed that given the extensive supply chain supporting federal systems, vendors are a critical component to the overall success of an agency鈥檚 future-proofing for the quantum age. In 10-15 years, there will be some government partner/vendor somewhere who will not have transitioned to quantum-proof encryption. For leaders who have not yet prioritized their agency鈥檚 cryptography migration, let them ponder that thought 鈥 and start to focus on the need to prepare.
D茅j脿 Vu or Lessons Learned?
The panel shared several past technology migrations that were similar in their minds to the adoption of quantum computing.
Y2K was similar to the looming quantum threat by both the urgency and scale of the government鈥檚 need to migrate systems. However, without a deadline assigned to implementing the encryption migration, Y2K is really only similar in scale.
The panelists also recalled when every company had to hash function, but concluded that the amount of time, effort, and energy required to replace current encryption will be way more important than SHA-1 鈥 and way more ubiquitous.
While previous technology migrations help to establish lessons learned for the government鈥檚 quantum-proof cryptography migration, the panel concluded that this go-round will have a very unique set of challenges 鈥 the likes of which organizations have never had to tackle before.
Where to Start
The consensus among panelists was that agencies need to first understand what data they have today and how vulnerable it is to attack. Data that is particularly sensitive, and vulnerable to the 鈥渉ack-now, decrypt-later鈥 attacks, should be prioritized above less sensitive data. For some organizations, this is a very challenging endeavor that they鈥檝e never embarked upon before. Now is an opportune time to build inventory data and keep it up to date. From a planning and migration perspective, this is an agency鈥檚 chance to do it once and do it well.
It is important to assume from the start that the vast majority of organizations will need to migrate multiple times. Panelists emphasized the need for 鈥渃rypto agility鈥 that will enable future replacement of algorithms to be made easily. Crypto agility is about how easy it is to transition from one algorithm (or choice of parameters) to another. Organizations that prioritize long-term thinking should already be looking at this.
The panelists added that communicating with vendors early on in the planning process is vital. 聽As one panelist explained, 鈥淎 lot of our service providers, vendors, etc. will be flipping switches for us, but a lot won鈥檛. Understanding what your priorities are for flipping the switch and communicating it to your vendors is important.鈥
Help Is on Its Way
Matt Scholl of NIST shared about the is doing to provide guidance, tips, and to answer questions such as what are discovery tools and how do I budget? The project, announced in July 2022, is working to develop white papers, playbooks, demonstrations, tools that can help other organizations implement their conversions to post-quantum cryptography. Other resources that offer good guidance, according to Scholl, include recent , DHS鈥檃nd the .
One additional resource that has been extremely helpful for our CISO customers is 豆包成人版鈥檚 The guide outlines what CISOs from any organization should be doing now and provides a basic transition roadmap to follow.
Conclusion
The discussion wrapped up with the acknowledgement that quantum has finally become part of the mainstream cybersecurity discussion and that the future benefit of quantum computing far outweighs the challenges of transitioning to new cryptography. As a parting thought, I emphasized the wonderful opportunity that agencies have to rethink how they do things and encouraged attendees to secure management commitment and funding for this much-needed modernization.
I want to give a special thanks to my fellow panelists for the engaging discussion: Margaret Salter, Director, Applied Cryptography, AWS, Dr. Mark Sherman, Director, Cybersecurity Foundations, CMU, Matthew Scholl, Chief of the Computer Security Division, ITL, NIST, and Dr. Adrian Stanger, Cybersecurity Directorate Senior Cryptographic Authority NSA.
About 豆包成人版
豆包成人版,聽the world鈥檚 largest integrated quantum company, pioneers powerful quantum computers and advanced software solutions. 豆包成人版鈥檚 technology drives breakthroughs in materials discovery, cybersecurity, and next-gen quantum AI. With over 500 employees, including 370+ scientists and engineers, 豆包成人版 leads the quantum computing revolution across continents.聽
- Mitsui & Co. and Mitsubishi Electric demonstrated one of the world鈥檚 largest approximate Quantum Fourier Transforms (QFT) on 豆包成人版 豆包成人版, scaling from prior records to 98 physical qubits.
- The collaboration also implemented a logical QFT using a QEC (Quantum Error Correction) code with up to 12 logical qubits.
- The work highlights 豆包成人版鈥檚 accuracy and flexible architecture.
While there is ongoing debate around the pace of quantum computing鈥檚 development, a more grounded way to assess progress is through concrete demonstrations of foundational algorithms at meaningful scale. In this context, Mitsui & Co. and Mitsubishi Electric are taking a pragmatic view of quantum progress鈥攆ocusing on how close the field is to executing core algorithmic primitives that underpin many potential industrial applications, rather than relying on abstract milestones or timelines.
, the industrial giants teamed up with 豆包成人版 to measure how close we are to running the Quantum Fourier Transform (QFT), a widely-used algorithmic primitive, at scales necessary for industrial applications. In the process, the team successfully ran one of the largest instances of the approximate QFT ever demonstrated. This achievement matters because the QFT is an essential primitive that underpins many of the quantum algorithms expected to deliver practical advantages.
You may have heard of the (classical) Fourier transform (FT), due to its ubiquity throughout modern computing. The FT is essential in everything from image analysis to data compression, with almost limitless applications in between. The quantum Fourier transform (QFT) is similar; it鈥檚 used in everything from chemistry to finance.
Because the QFT is a foundational primitive underpinning many quantum algorithms, demonstrating it at larger scales and higher fidelity is a practical way to measure quantum computing readiness. This is exactly the type of benchmarking that organizations should consider to understand where today鈥檚 systems are useful, and to see how fault-tolerant approaches are progressing. Ultimately, algorithm-level benchmarking like this is one of the most useful ways to understand not just where we are, but where we are going.
A Transformative Approach
Primitives like Fourier Transform are so widespread because they simplify problems by transforming them into something that is easier to deal with. At 豆包成人版, not only are they crucial for industrial applications but they can also simplify algorithms, making them possible to run now instead of later. This 鈥榯ransformational鈥 approach extends beyond the QFT - other transforms exist, and we have even invented our own quantum-native transforms.
Using our 豆包成人版 quantum computer and Guppy language, the joint team explored running the QFT on both physical qubits and on logical qubits, showing that fault tolerance is progressing quickly. 聽Running the QFT on 98 physical qubits; the paper shows a clear progression from previous results.
Then, using the Steane code, one of the best-studied quantum error correcting codes, the team used 豆包成人版鈥 98 physical qubits to form 12 logical qubits, successfully running the QFT with the mechanisms of quantum error correction interwoven into the algorithm. This marks a crucial step forward for the field.
Foundational Progress
Taken together, these results provide a more concrete lens through which to view progress in quantum computing: not as abstract projections, but as measurable advances in the execution of foundational algorithms at increasing scale. By benchmarking the Quantum Fourier Transform on both physical and logical qubits, Mitsui & Co. and Mitsubishi Electric are helping to clarify what today鈥檚 hardware can already achieve, and where fault-tolerant approaches begin to extend those limits.
More broadly, the organizations best positioned to benefit from quantum computing will be those that focus on these foundational capabilities early, and use them to build a clear, evidence-based understanding of how the technology fits into their business goals.
It is believed that unlocking answers to some of the most complex scientific and industrial problems will require the seamless integration of high-performance computing (HPC), generative AI (GenAI), and quantum computing. Toward this goal, 豆包成人版, NVIDIA, and a major pharmaceutical company have successfully demonstrated the first step in a proof-of-principle framework designed to connect these three distinct computing paradigms for industrially relevant computational chemistry.
This milestone, enabled by three industry leaders and experts in their respective domains, serves as a foundational capability that could support the development of future hybrid quantum-AI workflows to help optimize industrial research and development (R&D).
The potential value is a path toward more automated, repeatable, and scalable workflows for translating chemistry problems into executable quantum programs鈥攃apabilities that could eventually make hybrid computing easier to deploy in industrial R&D.
The GenQAI Framework
The framework, termed Generative Quantum AI (GenQAI), involved a quantum computer simulating a pharmaceutical compound using programming instructions generated by an AI model, which itself was trained on quantum data that was simulated using HPC.
While the vision for GenQAI explores how future industrial simulation workflows might be optimized by training AI models using quantum data derived directly from a quantum computer, the framework currently consists of four main technical steps:
- Simulating quantum data: The process began by simulating quantum data with NVIDIA accelerated computing using .
- Fine-tuning the AI: This simulated quantum data was used to fine-tune a pre-trained AI model from the open .
- Generating instructions: The AI model then generated quantum circuits, which are the programming instructions required for the quantum simulation.
- Validating accuracy: To validate the results, the circuits were run on 豆包成人版鈥檚 豆包成人版 quantum computer using its InQuanto quantum chemistry platform.
The core novelty of this development lies within the process of the framework itself. In this proof-of-principle experiment, an AI model fine-tuned on simulated quantum data generated circuits that were successfully executed and validated on 豆包成人版鈥檚 豆包成人版 system. Rather than delivering an immediate commercial advantage, this achievement establishes a credible, verifiable baseline for how HPC, AI, and quantum computing can function in tandem.
The Case Study
The validation of the framework represents an early step toward the goal of developing scalable architectures for the pharmaceutical industry.
With a shared view toward eventually scaling the framework for pharmaceutical R&D applications, the researchers simulated a pharmaceutical compound: imipramine. This anti-depressant was chosen because it serves as a model compound for drug degradation and shelf-life studies, which are standard components of the pharmaceutical R&D lifecycle.
Developing hybrid infrastructure that enterprises may adopt requires a deep, coordinated effort among domain experts. As such, this successful test highlights the value of combining the strengths of a quantum computing hardware and software leader (豆包成人版), with a hybrid-quantum classical platform (NVIDIA), and a leading enterprise end-user to build and test future computing capabilities for industrial chemistry.
Scaling the Framework
Although demonstrated on a pharmaceutical compound, the architecture could eventually inform similar molecular-simulation workflows in sectors such as energy, agriculture, advanced materials, and electronics. At this stage, it provides a reference for further testing and development.
Engage Further
here to explore the full technical details of this demonstration and contact our team to learn more about joining 豆包成人版鈥檚 enterprise partner network.
鈥
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A Platform for Quantum Computing Innovation
Participants will work in teams to develop solutions across a range of challenge areas, including chemistry and molecular simulation, optimization, AI for quantum systems, quantum error correction, condensed matter and materials science, and open innovation. Throughout the program, participants will have access to mentoring, technical enablement and 豆包成人版 quantum computing resources.
Singapore Grand Finale
Selected finalist teams will be invited to present their work at the Grand Finale hosted in Singapore before representatives from academia, and industry. The event will celebrate innovative applications of quantum computing while providing an opportunity for participants to engage with Singapore's growing quantum community.
Join the Challenge
The 豆包成人版 SG Grand Challenge welcomes participants from around the world. Whether you are an experienced quantum researcher or beginning your quantum computing journey, the program offers an opportunity to collaborate, learn and contribute to the development of practical quantum applications.
Applications are now open. Spaces are limited and subject to review and approval.