Hearing Wrap Up: U.S. Must Update Technology to Prepare for the Quantum Age

WASHINGTON—Yesterday, the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation held a hearing titled “Preparing for the Quantum Age: When Cryptography Breaks.” During the hearing members emphasized the United States has an obligation to compete for technological dominance and must update cybersecurity protocols to maintain its competitive edge. Members emphasized the federal government should modernize federal IT systems and update cybersecurity protocols to protect Americans’ data from potential hacks and breaches from hostile nations like China. 

Key Takeaways: 

The United States is competing for technological dominance in many domains, including quantum computing and artificial intelligence, and must continue innovating to maintain its lead. 

• Marisol Cruz Cain, Director of Information Technology and Cybersecurity at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, testified in her opening statement that “[The] United States needs to develop a strong quantum workforce to maintain its leadership position in quantum technology, hardware, and software development. In doing so, leveraging programs, training, and hiring are key. For example, education programs could provide the qualifications and skills needed to work in quantum technologies across both the public and private sector. Second, the sustained investment is particularly important to advance these technologies. To do so, basic funding for research and early development activities is essential.”  
   

Quantum computing will significantly impact everyday technology and cybersecurity worldwide as nations develop the next generation of computers. 

• Ms. Cruz Cain testified that “As you know, quantum computers hold the promise of solving critical problems that conventional computers cannot. These computers use the property of quantum physics to perform calculations dramatically faster than today’s conventional computers. This allows them to execute significantly greater numbers of calculations in the same amount of time. This increased computing power has potential applications in many different fields. For example, quantum computers may be able to simulate critical chemistry processes for developing new fertilizers and medicines. However, the flip side of this potential is that quantum computers can threaten the security of information systems and the data they contain, including those controlled by the federal government. For instance, quantum computers could defeat widely used encryption methods that individuals, federal agencies, and critical infrastructure entities rely on.” 
   

• Denis Mandich, Chief Technology Officer at Qrypt, testified that “The timeline is shrinking. The threshold is roughly four thousand logical qubits, and leading programs are racing toward that mark already. Delay is not just risky, it’s irrational. Progress in quantum computing is nonlinear and prone to sudden breakthroughs, and our adversaries have every incentive to conceal milestones until it’s too late. But the real danger isn’t only in the quantum threat—it’s our complacency. We’ve seen this pattern before. FLAME malware exploited weak cryptography many years ago, lingering undetected for years. Storm-0558 from China, you’re probably familiar with, resulted in Microsoft’s master signing key being stolen, compromising nearly all federal agencies.” 

The federal government needs to make more progress toward modernizing federal IT systems and updating cybersecurity protocols. 

• Subcommittee Chairwoman Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) remarked in her opening statement that “An important role of this Subcommittee is to ensure proper cybersecurity of federal technology. One thing all experts agree on is a sufficiently advanced quantum computer will upend cryptographic security in every sector including finance, healthcare, and defense. The federal government must not wait to tackle this enormous task. Already, we know foreign adversaries are implementing a “steal now, decrypt later” strategy with the hope today’s data will still be valuable when they have a quantum computer.  

• Dr. Scott Crowder, Vice President of IBM Quantum Adoption, testified in his opening statement that “[The] U.S. government and industry must become quantum safe and quantum ready. If the industry continues to advance at the expected pace, quantum computers will have the ability to break asymmetric encryption. [National Institute of Standards and Technology] has recommended existing encryption vulnerable to quantum computers be disallowed by 2035, and previous experiences have shown broad adoption of new cryptography can take more than a decade. Thus, we must act now. We must ensure our nation’s most critical systems are safe from threat. Thankfully, this Committee has realized this need and has already begun acting. Congress can help further by supporting the passage of additional legislation that ensures rapid adoption of post-quantum cryptography and appropriating funds to support this transition.”  

Member Highlights: 

Subcommittee Chairwoman Mace inquired about China’s quantum computing and artificial intelligence capabilities compared to the United States and the threat it creates.  

Subcommittee Chairwoman Mace: “How far behind do you think China is from the U.S. on AI?” 
 
Mr. Mandich: “I think it’s another situation where I do believe that just, again, having observed them for so long, they have access to everything that we’ve every done in all of our companies. All of our companies have been penetrated as far as we know. Many of their employees are in China. In many cases, those employees actually physically work from remote locations in Chinese intelligence agencies, not even in the private sector. So I do feel that because they’re so quiet about this, they’re being very secretive about what they’re doing. We don’t even know the names of the quantum companies in China. There’s only a couple of them that are public, the rest of them are completely unknown. We’re likely going to experience a DeepSeek moment in quantum computing. There was no DeepSeek before ChatGPT 3, that came up afterwards, and that came up very quickly and that didn’t happen from fundamental research. It came from data theft and IP monetization.” 
 
Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) expressed concern about the connection between Chinese international students at American universities and the increasing technological competition between China and the U.S. 

Rep. Crane: “[Mr. Mandich], you said you worked in the intelligence field for a long time? Does it concern you that universities like Brown and others allow students to come here—sometimes they come here and say that they’re [going to] start an English program—and then they work with maybe a sympathetic professor who shifts them into something like nuclear engineering or quantum computing, and then they end up competing with the United States?” 
 
Mr. Mandich: “Well, you know, we know that China floods the United States with students. That’s their frontline collection platforms. It floods not just the university system, but almost every company you can think of with collectors. So, we need to do a much better job of limiting that because we’ve effectively trained their entire quantum industry here in the United States. Very little of that happened domestically in China. So, we have to do something about it, but we also need more Americans to get into these fields, and get out of social media and TikTok, that we get to be the majority in these programs and not the minority.” 

Rep. John McGuire (R-Va.) asked about areas of U.S. quantum innovation most at risk of being overtaken by foreign adversaries.  

Rep. McGuire: “So, Dr. Crowder, what areas of U.S. quantum innovation are most at risk of being overtaken by a foreign adversary?” 
 
Dr. Crowder: “I think, there’s again, there’s two pieces of it. One of them is building the best quantum computers on the planet. Maybe three things. Based on public data, we think we have a lead over any place else in the world today, but that’s only based on public data. The second area is in the algorithms and applications. And right now, I would say, we’re seeing a little bit more investment by other governments than by the U.S. government and focusing on, you know, really the application research. We tend to wait until the computers are large enough to actually solve the mission before we begin the application research for the mission, if that makes sense.” 
 

Click here to watch the hearing.