Google’s new research: Quantum computers of less than a million bits can crack the RSA encryption algorithm in less than 7 days, which is 20 times easier than 6 years ago.

Silent revolutions often unfold quietly behind the glass door of the laboratory. However, Google’s latest research shows that the impact of the quantum computing revolution has begun to oscillate outward – which may shake the foundation of Internet security.

On May 21, Google Quantum AI published on arXiv that “How to factor 2048 bit RSA integers with less than a m The paper entitled “illion noisy qubits” (how to use less than 1 million noisy qubits to decompose 2048-bit RSA integers). Research shows that a quantum computer with less than 1 million noise-containing qubits can crack the 2048-bit RSA encryption key (the current mainstream standard of network data security) in less than a week. This value is only 1/20 of the author’s own prediction of about 20 million qubits in 2019. !

Picture

This study was completed by Craig Gidney, a Google quantum research scientist, and may redefine the technical threshold needed to threaten the world’s most widely used public key password system.

This study may prompt experts to re-evaluate: 1) the urgency of quantum cryptons after deployment; 2) the practical feasibility of implementing such attacks on the currently proposed hardware. More broadly, the study also shows that although factors such as the number of quantum bits, gate fidelity and error rate are very important, through algorithm innovation and software and hardware collaborative optimization, quantum computing can also achieve milestone breakthroughs such as quantum advantages!