The Coming Quantum National Security Crisis

A quantum computer could crack a code that would currently take a classical supercomputer about 300 trillion years... in less than eight hours. This is not science fiction: China and Russia are already collecting Western encrypted data, just waiting for the moment when quantum technology will be powerful enough to unlock those secrets. The common idea is that cryptography is an impassable wall, at least for decades. But it's about to become tissue paper. The real game changer is this: what is secure today could be as transparent as glass in a few years. And not just for the secrets that the White House protects — we're also talking about medical records, financial transactions, and industrial projects. Anne Neuberger, the author of this warning, has worked for years on American national security. She says that while in the West private companies like IBM and Google are leading quantum research, in China the government has put quantum at the center of its five-year plan, putting all its eggs in the basket of laboratories like Hefei. One of her phrases stuck with me: "The quantum threat to national security is hard to overstate." And the details are unsettling. Take this: Beijing and Moscow have already built "secure quantum links" between satellites and ground stations, which in theory immediately signal if someone is intercepting. In 2025, China demonstrated that it could connect stations more than 8,000 kilometers apart without the risk of espionage. Behind this is a geopolitical race: the United States has formed the Quantum Development Group with France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and ten other countries to block supply chains and protect secrets. China, on the other hand, is moving with the BRICS, especially with Russia, which after 2022 has tightened the bonds of military and technological cooperation. But the fact that really makes you think is this: everyone is already collecting encrypted data, hoping it will remain useful when the encryption is breached. The most sensitive information — such as nuclear projects — will remain relevant for decades. In the meantime, the private sector is moving: in 2024, the first "quantum-safe" algorithms were standardized, and Google aims to use them everywhere by 2029, accelerating the timeline compared to forecasts. Yet even if we could secure everything before the quantum computer arrives, the data already collected today could still be deciphered tomorrow. And changing passwords is not enough: strategies are needed to know what has already been exposed and to prepare to manage the loss. A curious detail: even in international collaboration, there is a double standard. The United States and China are working together on standards and protocols to avoid an Internet broken into incompatible blocks, but when it comes to military hardware, it's every country for itself. However, there is an aspect that is still little discussed: the threat is not only that secrets will be read, but that the entire infrastructure of online trust — banks, communications, commerce — will suddenly become porous, forcing drastic choices, such as disconnecting entire inadequate systems, or rethinking the foundations of the web. The sentence that sums it all up: what is encrypted today could soon be within the reach of anyone who has the first working quantum computer. If this perspective has changed the way you view digital security, you can mark on Lara Notes that this idea is now yours with I'm In — you choose whether it's just interest, experience, or a deep conviction. And if in a few days you find yourself telling someone that China and Russia are already collecting our encrypted data to read it in five years, you can go back to Lara Notes and tag whoever was with you: it's called Shared Offline. This Note comes from Foreign Affairs and has saved you 6 minutes of reading.