Beware of Bitcoin: Quantum computers that break encryption may be closer than expected, according to the California Institute of Technology

Quantum computers capable of breaking modern encryption may require far fewer qubits than previously thought, according to New research From the California Institute of Technology.

in He studies Posted Monday, Caltech worked with its headquarters in Pasadena OratomyA Quantum computing A startup founded by researchers from the California Institute of Technology to develop a new neutral atom system in which individual atoms are trapped and controlled by lasers to act as qubits. Doing so could allow a fault-tolerant quantum computer to run Shor’s algorithm, which could derive private keys from public keys used in BitcoinElliptic curve cryptography, with at least 10,000 reconfigurable atomic qubits.

Advances in quantum computing are accelerating the timeline for practical machines and increasing pressure to move to quantum-resistant cryptography, said Oratomic co-founder and CEO Dolev Blufstein, a visiting fellow in physics at Caltech.

“People have gotten used to quantum computers always being 10 years away,” Blufstein said. Decryption. “But when you look at where we were just over ten years ago, the best estimates of what was needed for Shor’s algorithm were a billion qubits at a time when the best systems we had in the lab were about five qubits.”

Today’s most popular error-correcting systems often require about 1,000 physical qubits to create a single reliable logical qubit, the error-correcting unit used to perform calculations. This overhead has helped push estimates of practical fault-tolerant systems into the million-qubit range, slowing progress toward machines capable of running algorithms that could threaten RSA and the elliptic curve cryptography it uses. Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Current lab systems are already approaching — and in some cases exceeding — 6,000 physical qubits, Blufstein noted. In other words, crypto risks may occur much faster than experts previously expected.

“You can actually see that the system size and controllability increase over time as the required system size decreases,” he said.

In September, researchers from the California Institute of Technology open A neutral-atom quantum computer running on 6,100 qubits with 99.98% accuracy and a coherence time of 13 seconds. It was a milestone towards error-correcting quantum machines that also renewed concerns about future threats to Bitcoin from Shor’s algorithm.

The threat has prompted governments and technology companies to begin moving to post-quantum cryptography, or cryptography designed to resist quantum attacks. However, the researchers warn that major engineering challenges remain, including scaling up quantum systems while maintaining extremely low error rates.

“Just getting 10,000 physical qubits is something that could happen within a year,” Blufstein said. “But that’s not the goal that people think. It’s not like you design a computer, just put the transistors on the chip, wash your hands, and say you’re done. It’s a non-trivial and very complex task to get started and build one.”

Despite this, Blufstein said a practical quantum computer may emerge before the end of the decade.

The news comes as Google searches I mentioned New results released Tuesday suggest that future quantum computers could crack elliptic curve cryptography with fewer resources than previously thought. This has increased the urgency of calls to move to post-quantum cryptography, before such machines become viable.

Although the cryptocurrency industry is starting to become increasingly focused Quantum riskThe risks extend beyond blockchain networks and require changes in much of the modern digital world, Blufstein said.

“I think it’s the digital infrastructure of the whole world. It’s not just blockchain. It’s IoT devices, Internet communications, routers, satellites,” he said. “It covers the entire global digital infrastructure, and it’s complex.”