IBM announced that two algorithms developed by IBM were adopted for the world's first post-quantum cryptography (PQC) standard officially announced on the 14th by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) under the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Of the three encryption standard algorithms announced this time, 'ML-KEM' and 'ML-DSA' were developed by IBM researchers. The third algorithm, SLH-DSA, was jointly developed by researchers who later joined IBM and IBM researchers. The fourth algorithm developed by IBM, FN-DSA, is scheduled to be standardized in the future.

According to IBM, quantum computers are now “cryptographically relevant,” meaning they have enough computational power to break the encryption standards that underpin most of the world’s data and infrastructure today. “This announcement is a significant milestone in protecting the world’s encrypted data from future cyberattacks,” IBM said.

IBM expects to deliver the first quantum system capable of error correction by 2029. The system is expected to perform hundreds of millions of quantum operations, producing results on complex problems that are currently inaccessible to classical computers. IBM plans to scale the system to perform more than a billion quantum operations by 2033. For this purpose, IBM provides a utility scale system.

Meanwhile, as the speed and error-correcting capabilities of quantum computers improve, they are more likely to be able to break the most widely used encryption systems today, such as the RSA algorithm. Accordingly, IBM is developing a data protection algorithm that can replace today's encryption systems.

A new standard released by NIST is designed to protect data exchanged over public networks and digital signatures for identity authentication. The standard is expected to form the basis for drawing a blueprint for cybersecurity strategies in the quantum computing era.

Meanwhile, NIST is continuing to evaluate additional algorithms to diversify its quantum-resistant encryption algorithm toolkit, including several others developed by IBM researchers, as well as continuing to evaluate Falcon for publication as the fourth official standard. To support this, IBM cryptographers have submitted three new digital signature schemes, which are already in NIST’s initial evaluation.

“IBM’s goal in quantum computing is two-fold: to bring useful quantum computing technologies to the world, and to keep the world safe from quantum threats,” said Jay Gambetta, vice president of IBM Quantum. “We are excited by the incredible progress being made by industries around the world exploring a wide range of problems as quantum computers work toward becoming fully error-corrected systems.”

"But we also recognize that these developments could have a dramatic impact on the security of our most sensitive data and systems. “NIST’s announcement of the world’s first three quantum-resistant cryptography standards is a significant milestone toward building a secure quantum future with quantum computing,” he added.