Why the NSA moving away from Suite B cryptography due to quantum computers makes total sense
TL;DR — Even though the Snowden files released in 2013 showed limited progress from the NSA on quantum computers, the last 2 years since have been a storm of real, practical results, as well as funding poured into both companies and academic research. Quantum computers could actually have been the trigger to begin the move to post-quantum cryptography
One of the comments I most often hear is “Well, Snowden released documents in 2013 showing that the NSA has not had much progress on their quantum computer”, used as a justification why we shouldn’t worry about quantum computing now.
While this statement about the Snowden files is true, the last 2 years have been a storm of real, practical results, as well as funding poured into both companies and academic research in quantum computing. We know the tipping point of quantum computing research happened after the Snowden files were released.
Companies in the quantum computing race
Publicly driving the battle for universal quantum computing are Google and IBM.
IBM has had a quantum computing research group for over 20 years at the Watson center in New York, and works on theoretical work as well as practical results in…
