In September, Google announced that it had achieved "quantum supremacy," meaning it built a functioning quantum computer — a feat that had been theorized but never achieved. The announcement was a major milestone in the field, but the technology is still nascent and doesn't have many practical applications yet.
Nonetheless, the announcement raised immediate concerns for security watchdogs, who say that quantum computers — which channel aberrant phenomena from quantum physics into computing power — could easily break encryption currently used in products seen as airtight, like blockchain or credit card transactions.
While quantum computers haven't been used to this end by hackers yet, experts worry that the technology could continue to advance in years to come, threatening encrypted data sets that organizations like banks protect for decades.