MilestoneTheory & algorithmsConfirmed

Gidney and Ekerå estimate 20 million qubits could break RSA-2048 in eight hours

May 23, 2019

Craig Gidney of Google and Martin Ekerå of Sweden's KTH estimate that an error-corrected quantum computer with about 20 million noisy physical qubits could factor a 2048-bit RSA key, a widely used encryption standard, in about eight hours, assuming hardware error rates of 0.1%.

Why it matters

MIT Technology Review contrasted it with a 2015 estimate of a billion qubits for the same job, and said organizations relying on such encryption for long-lived secrets should start worrying.

Craig Gidney · Martin Ekerå · Google

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