Google researchers published a preprint showing that 2048-bit RSA encryption could theoretically be broken by a quantum computer with 1 million noisy qubits running for one week — a 20-fold reduction from their 2019 estimate of 20 million qubits. The improvement comes from two sources: a new approximate modular exponentiation algorithm (reducing a 1000x overhead down to 2x) and better error correction techniques including doubled storage density and 'magic state cultivation'. Current quantum computers have only 100–1000 qubits, so no immediate threat exists, but the findings reinforce the urgency of migrating to NIST's post-quantum cryptography standards before 2030. Google has already deployed PQC in Chrome and internal communications, and has added PQC signature schemes to Cloud KMS.
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