Craig Gidney, a Google Quantum AI researcher, has developed a new method that drastically reduces the quantum resources needed to break RSA-2048 encryption
His latest research shows that factoring a 2048-bit RSA integer could be done with fewer than one million noisy qubits in under a week, compared to the previous estimate of 20 million qubits
The breakthrough uses approximate residue arithmetic, simplifying modular arithmetic and reducing computational load
Yoked Surface Codes, a technique from Gidney’s earlier work, maximize qubit utilization by efficiently storing idle logical qubits
Magic State Cultivation, another innovation, minimizes the resources needed for magic state distillation in quantum calculations
This advancement brings the practical threat of quantum attacks on RSA-2048 encryption much closer, urging a faster transition to quantum-resistant cryptography
The quantum computing community recognizes this as a significant milestone, bridging the gap between theoretical and practical quantum factoring