How Close Is the Quantum Threat to Encryption? — October 30, 2026

Alice & Bob’s compiled estimate puts a possible RSA-2048 attack at 22,593 physical cat qubits and 3.14 days, while the required fault-tolerant hardware remains a projection. We also cover IQM’s full-chip entanglement result, a Shionogi research prize, Infleqtion’s at-sea clock test, and IonQ news. IQM Demonstrates Entanglement Across a Complete 54-Qubit Processor — The Quantum Insider D-Wave Quantum: Lawsuits Challenge the Record Orders While a Korean Partnership Points to Industry — ad-hoc-news.de D-Wave on Shionogi’s NEDO Challenge result — X/@dwavequantum Infleqtion’s quantum atomic clock ran two weeks at sea, Navy tested it — Quantum Zeitgeist Alice & Bob Estimates 22,593 Qubits to Break RSA-2048 — The Quantum Insider Chapters 00:00 Today's headlines 00:55 IQM Emerald full-chip entanglement 03:00 Shionogi won NEDO Challenge prize 04:21 Infleqtion Tiqker clock operated at sea 05:38 IonQ AFRL allocation for drone links 06:36 Alice & Bob RSA-2048 cat-qubit estimate 09:28 Hype check on Alice & Bob estimate Quickly Quantum is an AI-voiced podcast, built and run by a real person. Nothing in this episode is financial advice. Follow Quickly Quantum: subscribe on YouTube · Apple Podcasts · Spotify More from Brian Lampert: Concrete Compute, the daily AI infrastructure briefing, and Space Stakes, the business of the new space race. Transcripts and every episode: quickly-quantum.kngoworld.chatgpt.site.