It’s 2035 — Open the Quantum Vault

This fictional article builds on our analysis, “Quantum Technologies and the Future of Cryptography: Three Scenarios for 2035”. It explores the implications of the second scenario becoming reality.

MAY 18, 2035 / EDITORIAL

Four years after the first verified break of the RSA cryptosystem, the global digital system continues to operate with limited disruption. The transition to Quantum-Resilient Cryptography (QRC) has largely secured critical infrastructure. Yet access to quantum computing remains tightly restricted by governments. That mismatch has a cost now: scientific progress in areas such as materials science and drug discovery is being constrained. Access should be expanded, or current restrictions explicitly justified.

Quantum Computers Broke RSA but the System Adapted

In 2031, following the three-year $30 billion “Quantum Sovereignty Project” – a coordinated initiative between EU member states and associated partners including Canada and Japan that consolidated programs such as France’s PROQCIMA and Canada’s Quantum Champions Program – the European Commission confirmed for the first time that a state-hosted quantum computer (location undisclosed) had successfully run Shor’s algorithm against RSA-2048 keys in a matter of months.

Yet a few years later, the broader digital system had not experienced the anticipated large-scale disruption. That outcome reflects preparation rather than luck.

Since the late 2010s, standards bodies among allied countries and led by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology coordinated the transition to QRC. This was further accelerated by the $20 billion “Agentic Crypto-Migration Initiative,” launched in 2031 by the EU, Japan, Canada and the United States.

The result: current indicators show advanced maturity. The 2034 BCG “QRC deployment indice” considered that overall adoption has reached 90 percent, with many critical sectors – defense, autonomous vehicles, banking, healthcare – exceeding 99 percent.

Incidents have occurred, but they have been localized and operational rather than systemic. The collapse of the Bank of Zefir is widely attributed to poor QRC implementation management, not to a weakness in the underlying protocols. The same pattern applies to blockchain systems that failed to migrate due to governance constraints. Bitcoin, for instance, remained divided for years over how to coordinate a transition without compromising decentralization, backward compatibility, or the economic interests of miners and large holders. As confidence in a successful migration deteriorated, its value dropped and capital moved toward QRC-ready alternatives such as Ethereum, now the leading cryptocurrency.

At the same time, residual quantum risk appears contained. The “harvest now, decrypt later” (HNDL) scenario, often cited as a significant threat, has not materialized at scale. Whilst some adversarial states are assessed to possess a cryptographically-relevant quantum computer (CRQC) and have reportedly been collecting as much data from other governments as they could since the 2000s, the cost of decryption remains high, and the likelihood of extracting relevant intelligence from these large, noisy datasets is low and shrinking as time goes by and the value of information diminishes.

Quantum Computing Remains Behind Closed Doors

Since 2031, high-end quantum computing capabilities have been concentrated within state-controlled environments.

In the US, Japan and Europe, export controls restrict the diffusion of advanced components and quantum vendors operate under regulatory frameworks that limit their commercial activity to government-only contracts.

These policies were introduced when defensive measures were incomplete but that condition no longer holds.

Two constraints now define access:

• Within countries: access to advanced quantum systems is highly limited in capability – up 1000 qubits whilst 100,000-qubit systems exist – and requires advanced clearance. A significant share of researchers, including foreign nationals (even in the EU!), cannot use leading infrastructure. This contrasts with artificial intelligence from the last decade, where frontier models have been made broadly accessible through open-sourcing and cloud interfaces.
• Between countries: a small number of states – six according to the latest « Quantum Proliferation » report from the EU – hold CRQC and export controls make any progress on the technology very hard for those left behind – what has been referred to as a “quantum divide”.

Civilian applications are underexploited

CRQCs are as good at breaking pre-quantum cryptosystems than at accelerating fundamental science. 

We know that since the 1980s. But we had the experimental demonstrations before access was shut down by governments. Indeed, many research programs combining 10,000-qubit processors and large-scale AI systems have demonstrated highly promising results in materials science and drug discovery. For instance, some of the US-led Genesis Mission papers published in 2028-2029 were showing simple but very interesting modeling of how high-temperature superconductivity could emerge in materials. Building on these results, CRQC-powered simulations could accelerate the development of lossless power transmission systems, potentially solving the energy bottleneck for high-stakes AGI development programs.

Furthermore, broader availability would accelerate the development of new heuristic methods, enable iterations and diversify use cases, particularly in optimization, a long-standing and still largely open area of quantum computing research.

The current rationale for quantum computing restriction is weakening

Initial restrictions were justified by the risk of uncontrolled cryptographic disruption. That risk has now been mitigated:

• QRC deployment is advanced across critical systems.
• No systemic vulnerability has been observed in standardized schemes.
• Residual exposure – through HNDL – is localized.

Of course, remaining uncertainties exist:

• Some legacy systems may still rely on incomplete migration.
• Long-term robustness of lattice-based cryptography, the foundation behind QRC, has not been tested under decades of adversarial pressure.
• Undisclosed CRQC capabilities may extend beyond current public assessments, which could increase the risk of large-scale HNDL attacks, if costs of these machines drop.

Now the question is: do these factors justify today’s caution?

Ask and Path Forward

The argument that the quantum threat was still hypothetical and defenses were incomplete carried weight a few years ago. But it carries less weight today, as we have seen.

Governments should move toward controlled deployment of what we call “Research-Oriented Quantum Computers” (ROQC) at accredited, audited institutions with end usage monitored through software safeguards to prevent malicious crypto applications. Access to the ROQCs can be coordinated through international oversight between allied countries. This approach would preserve security while enabling scientific progress.

The question is no longer whether quantum computing can break the old digital world. It already has, and without causing systemic disruption. The question is whether it will be allowed to help build the next one.