Synthetic Minds | Why Your Encryption Has an Expiry

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Quantum’s ChatGPT Moment Will Break Your Locks

Google is issuing a call to action: the quantum era will break the digital locks we rely on, and the window to get ahead of it is closing rapidly. This is a signal leaders should not ignore.

Quantum’s promise, drug discovery, materials science, energy, comes with a brutal side effect: a cryptographically relevant quantum computer could unravel the public-key cryptosystems protecting bank transfers, private chats, trade secrets, and classified systems.

And the most dangerous part is timing. Attackers don’t need quantum to arrive to start winning. They can harvest encrypted data now and decrypt it later. The breach happens in slow motion, then shows up all at once, helped by AI to find patterns and insights in the data.

I’ve been saying this for years: if the last few years belonged to AI, the rest of this decade increasingly belongs to quantum, and the world is not ready for quantum’s “ChatGPT moment.” Standards are no longer the excuse. NIST finalized the first post-quantum cryptography standards in August 2024.

This is the most underpriced risk in modern leadership. The “we’re waiting” era is over. Y2K was a $100B inconvenience. Quantum migration is a civil-engineering project for the digital world.

Imagine a an airplane swapping engines mid-flight without crashing. That’s what “crypto agility” demands: replacing the cryptography under your entire business while customers keep booking, checking-in, boarding, and trusting the system.

And the time to start working is today, because when one of the companies building toward this future tells the market to move, you move.

Google has been working on post-quantum cryptography since 2016, and it’s now publicly warning that a large-scale quantum computer could break today’s public-key cryptography. That combination, deep capability plus an explicit call to action, isn’t PR. It’s a timeline a signal you should not ignore.

This decade rewards leaders who modernize trust before trust collapses. Is your organization preparing itself for what is to come?

'Synthetic Minds' continues to reflect the synthetic forces reshaping our world. Quick, curated insights to feed your quest for a better understanding of our evolving synthetic future, powered by Futurwise:

1. AI-generated images may seem impressive, but they lack common sense and understanding, highlighting the limitations of AI technology. (The Conversation)

2. In a groundbreaking breakthrough, scientists have developed a new CRISPR-based technology that can reverse antibiotic resistance in bacteria, offering a potential solution to the growing global health crisis. (Medical & Life Sciences News)

3. A team of engineers has developed a new device called an Ising machine, which uses pulses of light to solve complex optimization problems. (Gizmodo)

4. Amazon is investing heavily in robotics and AI to automate its operations, including the development of 'humanoid' robots to deliver packages and replace delivery drivers. (The Guardian)

5. A new study reveals that AI tools are not reducing work, but rather intensifying it, leading to burnout and workload creep. Companies need to implement an 'AI practice' to mitigate these effects. (Decrypt)

If you are interested in more insights, grab my latest, award-winning, book Now What? How to Ride the Tsunami of Change and learn how to embrace a mindset that can deal with exponential change, or download my news 2026 tech trends report: