Draft, not yet released. In stewardship review. Not indexed until the first approved release.

Key findings

Twelve findings carry the quantum baseline. They are grouped by coupling and never ranked. Each resolves to its source or, where Nexus analysis is involved, to its stated method.

5 min read1 figure0 tables15 notesNR-XTECH-QUANTUM-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

Contents
  1. ·Edition home
  2. ·Executive summary
  3. 1Quantum is infrastructure and a cryptographic deadline
  4. 2Key findings
    1. 2.1 Headline finding
    2. 2.2 Infrastructure
    3. 2.3 CRY
    4. 2.4 Governance
    5. 2.5 Finance
    6. 2.6 Energy
    7. 2.7 Minerals
    8. 2.8 Systemic
  5. 3Systems and sectors at baseline
  6. 4Risks and capability
  7. 5Long-lived data exposure while migration is slow
  8. 6Readings from the other desks
  9. 7The 2027 agenda
  10. 8Systems in depth
  11. AMethodology
  12. BData appendix
  13. CReferences and record
  14. ·Complete edition, for print

2.1Headline finding

ReportedEQL 5NRF-XTECH-QUANTUM-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-CRY-005

NIST finalised three post-quantum cryptography standards on 13 August 2024: FIPS 203 (ML-KEM), FIPS 204 (ML-DSA) and FIPS 205 (SLH-DSA).

Figure 2.1Standards finalised on 13 August 2024
ItemBar, scaled to the largest valueValue
FIPS 203 · key establishment (ML-KEM)1
FIPS 204 · signatures (ML-DSA)1
FIPS 205 · backup signatures (SLH-DSA)1

Source: NIST news release of 13 August 20243. Each bar counts one standard.

Implication

Standards exist, so migration is now an engineering and planning task. NIST urged administrators to start integrating them immediately and said there was no need to wait for further standards. A fourth draft standard, FIPS 206 (FN-DSA), was planned3. The transition report NIST IR 8547 is an initial public draft at the evidence close4.

What would move it

The final transition report, sector migration progress and national directives would each move this finding.

2.2Infrastructure

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-XTECH-QUANTUM-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-INF-001

    A distance-7 surface code on 101 qubits reached a logical error of 0.143% per cycle, and logical error fell by a factor of 2.14 for each step up in code distance.2

  2. ReportedEQL 3NRF-XTECH-QUANTUM-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-INF-002

    IBM states a plan for a fault-tolerant machine with 200 logical qubits and 100 million gates in 2029; its current Nighthawk processor has 120 qubits.8

  3. ReportedEQL 2NRF-XTECH-QUANTUM-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-INF-003

    Quantinuum launched its Helios system in November 2025 with 98 physical qubits and a two-qubit gate fidelity of 99.921%, in a company announcement.42

2.3CRY

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-XTECH-QUANTUM-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-CRY-004

    A 2025 preprint estimates that RSA-2048 could be factored with fewer than one million noisy qubits in under a week, assuming a 0.1% gate error and a 1 microsecond cycle.127

  2. ReportedEQL 5NRF-XTECH-QUANTUM-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-CRY-005

    NIST finalised FIPS 203, 204 and 205 on 13 August 2024 and urged administrators to begin integrating them immediately.34

2.4Governance

  1. ReportedEQL 3NRF-XTECH-QUANTUM-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-GOV-006

    The European Commission published a coordinated implementation roadmap for post-quantum cryptography on 23 June 2025, with milestones reported at the end of 2026, 2030 and 2035.615

  2. ReportedEQL 2NRF-XTECH-QUANTUM-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-GOV-007

    NSA guidance for national security systems sets a staged transition to quantum-resistant algorithms, with 2035 as the overall goal in secondary summaries.14

  3. ReportedEQL 4NRF-XTECH-QUANTUM-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-GOV-011

    The EU adopted its Quantum Europe Strategy in July 2025 and planned a Quantum Act for 2026, after a EUR 1 billion flagship launched in 2018.7

2.5Finance

  1. ReportedEQL 3NRF-XTECH-QUANTUM-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-FIN-008

    Quantum startups raised USD 12.6 billion in 2025, 6.3 times the 2024 level, and company revenues passed USD 1 billion.11

2.6Energy

  1. ReportedEQL 3NRF-XTECH-QUANTUM-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-ENE-009

    A peer-reviewed estimate finds that for noisy hardware and moderately entangled problems, a classical tensor network can be more energy-efficient than quantum computation at equal fidelity.9

2.7Minerals

  1. ReportedEQL 3NRF-XTECH-QUANTUM-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-MIN-010

    The closure of the Strait of Hormuz in 2026 disrupted helium as well as aluminium and sulphur, and dilution refrigerators depend on helium-4 and helium-3.1013

2.8Systemic

  1. Expert inputEQL 2NRF-XTECH-QUANTUM-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-SYS-012

    The leading compound pathway for 2027 testing is exposure of long-lived data to later decryption, while migration is slow and hardware milestones move faster than planned. § scenario

Notes

Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references

  1. 3NIST (ed.), NIST releases first 3 finalised post-quantum encryption standards (news release, 13 August 2024; FIPS 203, 204, 205). National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  2. 4NIST (ed.), Transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography Standards, NIST IR 8547, initial public draft (publication page; published 12 November 2024; comment period closed 10 January 2025). National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  3. 2Google Quantum AI and collaborators, Quantum error correction below the surface code threshold, Nature 638, 920 to 926, 2025 (preprint arXiv:2408.13687, August 2024). Springer Nature, London. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  4. 8IBM (ed.), IBM Quantum technology and roadmap page (Nighthawk 120 qubits; Starling planned for 2029 with 200 logical qubits and 100 million gates; statement on advantage in 2026). IBM, Armonk. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  5. 42Quantinuum (ed.), Quantinuum announces commercial launch of Helios (press release, 5 November 2025; 98 qubits, 99.921% two-qubit and 99.9975% single-qubit gate fidelity; 94 error-detected and 48 error-corrected logical qubits; no logical gate fidelity stated). Quantinuum, Broomfield. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  6. 1Gidney, C., How to factor 2048 bit RSA integers with less than a million noisy qubits, arXiv:2505.15917, submitted 21 May 2025. arXiv, Ithaca. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  7. 27UNVERIFIED, not opened: Gidney, C. and Ekerå, M., How to factor 2048 bit RSA integers in 8 hours using 20 million noisy qubits, Quantum 5, 433, 2021, cited from memory. Observation year 2021. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  8. 6European Commission (ed.), Coordinated Implementation Roadmap for the transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography (library page; roadmap published 23 June 2025; page updated 3 September 2026; the roadmap milestones were not on the page). Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, Brussels. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  9. 15UNVERIFIED, not opened: NIS Cooperation Group PQC workstream (eds.), A Coordinated Implementation Roadmap for the Transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography (milestones: roadmaps by the end of 2026, high-risk use cases by 2030, as many systems as feasible by 2035), taken from secondary summaries. European Commission, Brussels. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  10. 14UNVERIFIED, not opened: NSA (ed.), Commercial National Security Algorithm Suite 2.0 (CNSA 2.0) advisory and timetable, taken from secondary summaries that differ on some dates. National Security Agency, Fort Meade. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  11. 7European Commission (ed.), Quantum policy page (Quantum Europe Strategy adopted July 2025; Quantum Act planned for 2026; Quantum Technologies Flagship EUR 1 billion from 2018; EuroHPC quantum computers EUR 100 million, October 2022). Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, Brussels. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  12. 11UNVERIFIED, not opened: McKinsey and Company (ed.), Quantum Technology Monitor 2026 (startup investment USD 12.6 billion in 2025, 6.3 times 2024; company revenues above USD 1 billion; about 97% private funding), taken from search-result summaries; the chart page returned a service error. McKinsey and Company, New York. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  13. 9Jaschke, D. and Montangero, S., Is quantum computing green? An estimate for an energy-efficiency quantum advantage, Quantum Science and Technology 8, 025001, 2023 (preprint arXiv:2205.12092). IOP Publishing, Bristol. Observation year 2023. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  14. 10IEA (ed.), Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026 (revised version, July 2026). International Energy Agency, Paris. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  15. 13UNVERIFIED, not opened: War on the Rocks (ed.), The supply chain chokepoints in quantum (October 2025), and CNAS (ed.), report on helium-3 recovery and reserves (March 2026), taken from search-result summaries. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back

Cite this chapter

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Chapter 2: Key findings. In Exponential Technology Report 2026: Quantum Technologies (Baseline Edition 2026, Report No. NR-XTECH-QUANTUM-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE) [Draft under review]. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).

Every citation form of the whole report, BibTeX and RIS included, is on the edition home. Cite this report

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