Its interesting to imagine that somebody [1] is already now capturing encrypted internet traffic and storing it all long-term, to then hypothetically in 40-50 years or something decrypt it and draw value from that information. I suppose to blackmail future politicians, learn military secrets, whatever.
[1] NSA
It's hard to tell as someone not in the field, but quantum computing seems to be moving faster than that? I'm not sure I believe two years, but:
Harvard physicists working to develop game-changing tech demonstrate 3,000 quantum-bit system capable of continuous operation
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/09/clearing-sign...
PsiQuantum Raises $1 Billion, Says Its Computer Will Be Ready in Two Years
As someone not in the field it's hard to distinguish the "quantum startup raised x billions, claims quantum computing x years away" from "fusion startup raised x billions, claims fusion power x years away" headlines every few months for the past 10+ years.
Headlines like these are the outliers to the trend that thus appear more credible to me personally: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45238481
Thanks for the link. I skimmed through the report that the article is based on. It tracks rising activity in quantum computing R&D in several areas. But at least in the executive summary, I didn't see anything about commercial applications one way or the other. It doesn't seem to make any predictions?
So, it's odd that the article summarized it that way.
> Its interesting to imagine that somebody [1] is already now capturing encrypted internet traffic and storing it all long-term, to then hypothetically in 40-50 years or something decrypt it and draw value from that information. I suppose to blackmail future politicians, learn military secrets, whatever.
You don't have to imagine, there's literally a NSA datacenter in Utah for doing just that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center