The National Security Agency fears a quantum computing breakthrough by America’s adversaries would jeopardize the security of the global economy and allow foes to peer inside top-secret communications systems.
The agency’s concern is that an unforeseen advance in quantum technology would crack encryption systems used to protect everything from financial transactions to sensitive communications involving nuclear weapons, according to NSA Director of Research Gil Herrera.
Speaking at an Intelligence and National Security Alliance event last week, Mr. Herrera said no country has a quantum computer that he would consider useful — yet.
He said there are a lot of teams around the world building with different technologies and someone could achieve a development representing a “black swan” event, an extremely unexpected occurrence with profound — and dangerous — consequences for U.S. national security.
“If this black swan event happens, then we’re really screwed,” Mr. Herrera said.
Americans could suffer consequences from such a quantum leap in several ways. Mr. Herrera said the world economy, and the U.S. market in particular, are vulnerable because most financial transactions are secured by encryption systems that can’t be cracked by non-quantum means.
If quantum tech weakens or eliminates such encryption walls, then financial institutions may have to resort to older transaction methods and banks would look for other means to protect their dealings with other banks, according to Mr. Herrera.
And, he warned, other industries may be even less resilient in the face of the threat. Mr. Herrera said the threat of a quantum computer is not limited to its immediate potential damage, but to the fallout from obtaining encrypted information that was previously recorded.
Drawing on his decades of experience at Sandia National Laboratories, Mr. Herrera said a quantum advance may be able to help people find information on weapons systems that have been in the U.S. arsenal for a significant period of time.
“There are ways that we can communicate with our various partners in nuclear weapon production where public key encryption is utilized to share keys,” Mr. Herrera said. “And now, what if somebody’s recorded that information and they crack it?”
Details on foreign adversaries’ advanced computing capabilities are closely guarded, Federal policymakers are worried in particular about China’s efforts to achieve computing breakthroughs.
Reflecting on supercomputers at a House Armed Services Committee hearing last year, Rep. Morgan Luttrell said he worried Beijing may have already surpassed the U.S. in its supercomputing prowess.
China “should have on board or online another computer that would have trumped us and pushed us back some,” the Texas Republican said at the March 2023 hearing. “So the amount of money they’re spending in that space as compared to us would make me think that they’re ahead of us.”
Retired Gen. Paul Nakasone, then in charge of U.S. Cyber Command, cautioned Mr. Luttrell against assuming that outspending America would guarantee an adversary’s technological success.
“Spending money doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re the best in what you do and being able to integrate that kind of capability is what really matters,” Gen. Nakasone said at the hearing. “So being able to take the intelligence, integrate it within maneuver force to have an outcome is where I clearly see United States has the lead.”
But experts agree that quantum computing breakthroughs would dramatically outdo existing supercomputers. The NSA is not waiting to find out.
Mr. Herrera said the NSA believes the algorithms it is deploying will withstand a quantum attack.
“One thing NSA has done about it is we actually started research in quantum-resistant algorithms not too long after we started funding academic programs to come up with what a quantum computer would look like,” Mr. Herrera said. “So we have a lot of maturity within the NSA, we have been deploying quantum-resistant encryption in certain key national security applications for a while now.”
Efforts to better understand the quantum capabilities of America’s adversaries are underway as well. The congressionally chartered U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission is scrutinizing the communist country’s push to transform its military through the application of quantum and emerging technologies to its weapons systems and logistics.
Last month, the commission conducted a hearing that included an examination of China’s quest for teleportation technology.