Quantum Computing Landscape
Quantum computing has entered the NISQ (Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum) era with commercial systems exceeding 1,000 qubits. IBM, Google, IonQ, and Quantinuum are racing toward fault-tolerant quantum computing. The cryptographic threat — 'harvest now, decrypt later' — is driving urgent post-quantum migration across government and financial sectors.
NIST Post-Quantum Standards
NIST finalised four post-quantum cryptographic standards in 2024: FIPS 203 (ML-KEM, based on CRYSTALS-Kyber), FIPS 204 (ML-DSA, based on CRYSTALS-Dilithium), FIPS 205 (SLH-DSA, based on SPHINCS+), and FIPS 206 (FN-DSA, based on FALCON). Organisations are advised to begin crypto-agility assessments and hybrid classical/PQC deployments immediately.
Quantum Networking
Quantum key distribution (QKD) networks are being deployed in China, Europe, and the US. The quantum internet — leveraging quantum entanglement for theoretically unbreakable communication — remains 10–15 years from widespread deployment. Quantum repeaters and quantum memory are the primary technical bottlenecks. Satellite-based QKD (Micius) has demonstrated intercontinental quantum-secure communication.
Enterprise Quantum Readiness
Enterprise quantum readiness assessment should cover: cryptographic inventory (identify RSA, ECC, and Diffie-Hellman usage), risk prioritisation (long-lived data, critical infrastructure), vendor roadmap alignment, and hybrid migration planning. Only 16.3% of organisations have achieved high PQC readiness (Nurhaliza & Darmawan, 2025). Legacy system prevalence (84.4%) is the primary barrier.