Google has set a 2029 deadline for migrating to post-quantum cryptography, citing faster-than-expected progress in quantum hardware and error correction. This timeline precedes the 2031 target set by the National Security Agency and the 2035 guidelines from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Research from the California Institute of Technology, the University of California at Berkeley, and Oratomic Inc. indicates that a fault-tolerant quantum computer could break current encryption using 10,000 to 26,000 qubits. This requirement is significantly lower than previous estimates of millions of qubits.
Industry data highlights a gap between awareness and action. A 2026 report by DigiCert Inc. shows that while 87% of organizations are planning or testing post-quantum initiatives, only 7% have deployed quantum-safe cryptography across a significant portion of their digital certificates.
Additional findings from Axiad IDS Inc. reveal that 51% of security leaders have not tested their public-facing infrastructure for post-quantum key exchange. Furthermore, a study by the Ponemon Institute, sponsored by Entrust Corp., indicates that only 38% of global organizations are actively transitioning to new standards.
Experts suggest shifting from an application-by-application migration to a centralized approach at the network layer. This strategy focuses on upgrading infrastructure control points, which could allow organizations to achieve broader coverage more efficiently than updating thousands of individual services.
