Powerful quantum computers may be closer than scientists thought.
To unleash the technology’s full power, scientists have long thought that quantum computers with millions of quantum bits, or qubits, would be necessary. But researchers report that quantum computers’ promise might emerge with as few as 10,000 qubits.
One of the key tasks that future quantum computers are expected to excel at is cracking the encryption used to secure communications on the internet. Now, scientists have calculated that a widely used type of encryption called elliptic curve cryptography could be thwarted with a quantum computer with 9,988 qubits — although it would take about 1,000 days to crack.
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