Will quantum computers disrupt critical infrastructure?

Will quantum computers disrupt critical infrastructure? 3 hours ago Joe Fay Technology Reporter Google Many organisations are developing quantum computers Twenty five years ago computer programmers were racing to fix the millennium bug amidst fears that it would cause banking systems to crash and planes to fall out of the sky. Much to everyone's relief the impact turned out to be minimal. Today, some fear there is a new critical threat to the world’s digital infrastructure. But this time, we cannot predict exactly when it will move from theory to reality, while the ubiquity of digital technology means fixing the problem is even more complicated. That’s because the arrival of quantum computing means that many of the encryption algorithms that underpin and secure our hyperconnected world will be trivially easy to crack. Quantum computing is radically different to the “classical” computing used today. Instead of processing binary bits which exist in one of two states – one or zero, on ... Read full article.