‘Off to the races’: DARPA, Harvard breakthrough brings quantum computing years closer

WASHINGTON — Widespread quantum computing may now come years sooner than widely expected, thanks to a Pentagon-funded project with implications for everything from rapid vaccine development and weather forecasting to cyber warfare and codebreaking.

If the Harvard-led experiment can be replicated and scaled up, it would still take years to make quantum computers widely available to run new forms of artificial intelligence for medical research, scientific experimentation and military command-and-control. But early adopters would almost certainly include intelligence agencies eager to crack encryption protocols widely used by governments and businesses alike. That makes it all the more urgent to implement the new quantum-resistant encryption algorithms the National Institute of Standards & Technology aims to finalize in 2024.

 
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