Leading with Proof: IonQ’s Blueprint for Quantum-Safe Enterprise Security
This article was originally posted by IonQ. To view the original article please click here.
At a glance
- IonQ has designed a quantum-safe security solution leveraging the strengths of both quantum key distribution (QKD) and post-quantum cryptography (PQC).
- This hybrid approach is now running live in IonQ’s own network, protecting the company’s mission-critical data between locations in Geneva, Switzerland, and Seoul, South Korea.
- IonQ is showing organizations how they can act now to accelerate their own quantum-safe security migrations, and mitigate the risk of “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later” attacks.
- The solution directly addresses recent proclamations by governments worldwide urging more rapid migration to quantum-safe security.
- The hybrid solution is just one aspect of IonQ’s broader roadmap to help organizations worldwide reduce their exposure to threats that could cause revenue loss and weaken operational stability.
Hybrid QKD+PQC Approach Adds a New Layer of Protection as Q-Day Nears
IonQ offers a multi-layered approach ready to help corporate and government organizations prepare for the imminent cybersecurity threat posed by near-term quantum computers. This global, hybrid quantum-safe security initiative leverages both QKD and PQC technologies. As IonQ expands its footprint across global offices, we are deploying this hybrid security approach. An example of this is the deployment between our Geneva and Seoul offices, helping to protect IonQ’s most sensitive operational data, including proprietary research, intellectual property, and the communications infrastructure that supports our global quantum computing operations.
By sharing about our own deployment, we aim to demonstrate the immediate steps leaders can – and must – take to mitigate quantum risks, including catastrophic financial loss, infrastructure failure, and reputational damage.
We’ve understood for decades that a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could one day break public-key cryptography algorithms like Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). In 1994, Peter Shor developed Shor’s Algorithm, which could be run on a quantum computer to efficiently factorize large numbers. Since factoring is the mathematical problem underlying both RSA and ECC, this means a quantum computer of sufficient size could break both schemes. No such quantum machine existed back then, but the knowledge that one eventually would exist led to that line on the horizon being called “Q-Day.”
The urgency surrounding Q-Day is driven by a fundamental compression of technical timelines. IonQ’s performance achievements – from accelerating our Algorithmic Qubit roadmap to advancing error mitigation – are proving that practical quantum advantage is arriving faster than legacy models predicted.
Last March, Google Quantum AI and its research partners published a landmark paper (arXiv:2603.28846) claiming 256-bit ECC – the foundation of most internet security, TLS, and blockchain – could be broken with as few as 1,200 logical qubits. This research drove Google to recommend migration to PQC by 2029. Other research has suggested that fewer than 100,000 qubits could be required to factor a 2,048-bit RSA integer.
Separately, on September 8, 2026, IonQ published its own research demonstrating that a system of approximately 1,457 logical qubits could execute Shor’s algorithm against a 256-bit elliptic curve digital signature scheme in approximately 26 days – the first fully compiled estimate of its kind from IonQ.
The most urgent reality regarding Q-Day is this: By the time quantum computers can run Shor’s Algorithm, it will be too late for corporations and governments to begin adopting quantum-safe security. Migrating to this new layer of protection can take an organization several years – often spanning a full hardware refresh cycle – including enterprise-wide asset inventories, vendor selection, and testing and validation phases. Organizations that align their quantum-safe migration to their next planned refresh cycle can manage the transition systematically rather than reactively. To put it simply, organizations can’t wait any longer to start down this road.
Hackers certainly aren’t waiting. The world has come to a queasy understanding that they could be stealing encrypted data right now, and planning to use a quantum computer later to break the locks–a practice commonly known as “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later” (HNDL).
IonQ’s proactive effort to strengthen IT security practices reflects this reality, and also arrives as nations around the world are coming to terms with the quantum threat. For example, in the US, a new mandate recently pulled forward the deadlines for federal government agencies to adopt PQC-standard public keys and quantum-safe digital signatures. Meanwhile, in Europe, the European Commission recently said all member states should start transitioning to PQC by the end of this year. The governments of the US and Japan also recently agreed to “collaborate to accelerate” PQC adoption in their respective countries. In December last year, IonQ announced the deployment of Slovakia’s first national quantum communication network. Developed in partnership with the Institute of Physics, Slovak Academy of Sciences (IPSAS), the new system features a resilient hybrid architecture designed to strengthen the country’s cybersecurity infrastructure and support Europe’s quantum digital programs. And in February of this year, IonQ further announced that it successfully deployed the technology powering the Romanian National Quantum Communication Infrastructure (RoNaQCI). This initiative represents one of the largest and most complex operational quantum key distribution (QKD) network in Europe and one of the largest of its kind outside of China.
All of the above make the quantum threat a present and practical corporate risk management and governance priority for government agencies, corporate boards and C-level officers worldwide.
A Pragmatic Enterprise Defense Solution
This encroaching reality and new sense of urgency set the stage for IonQ’s new hybrid protection architecture that encompasses both QKD and PQC in a single infrastructure solution to help protect widely distributed corporate and government locations.
This infrastructure is operational now in its inaugural deployment across two continents, securing four IonQ sites between Geneva, Switzerland, and Seoul, South Korea. In this new hybrid approach, QKD protects local fiber links connecting IonQ sites in Geneva, providing information-theoretic security for high-priority internal communications, while an additional layer of PQC secures software-defined VPN endpoints between Geneva and IonQ’s South Korea headquarters.
This deployment is not a standalone project, but the first step in a broader global program that has been undertaken by IonQ to provide a blueprint for executing a systematic, scalable, and repeatable strategy for implementing quantum-safe security.
A closer look at QKD and PQC:
| Quantum Key Distribution | Post-Quantum Cryptography |
|---|---|
| QKD uses quantum states to establish shared secret keys, with eavesdropping detectable. | Math-based public-key algorithms built on lattice structures and multivariate equations, thought to be resilient against quantum computers. |
| Local QKD networks are already deployed, with many more to come, and eventually longer-distance QKD links leveraging satellites or quantum networks. | Drop-in compatible with existing infrastructure, deployable across servers, VPNs, smartphones, computers, and IoT devices without replacing existing frameworks, enabling rapid, wide-scale adoption. |
| Communication between QKD and encryptor is standardized by ETSI including Protection Profile. | Standardized by NIST, endorsed by US CISA. |
| Not susceptible to future classical and quantum computer breakthroughs. Relies on optical fibers or free space including satellites. Best suited for high-priority, fixed infrastructure links requiring the highest level of security assurance. | Security relies on computational hardness assumptions — resilience against future quantum and AI attacks continues to be actively researched and validated. Hybrid architecture ensures PQC continuity even if a QKD intermediate relay node is compromised, though this will not be an issue in future quantum networks. |
Together, QKD and PQC offer thorough quantum-safe security that no single technology can provide on its own, and IonQ has them working in concert now in a live deployment. This is not a sandbox deployment or a field trial; this is IonQ using its long-tested, proven, and validated quantum-safe security techniques on its own mission-critical, international infrastructure to add new layers of security onto its enterprise defenses.
Proving by Using
As the urgency around Q-Day grows, navigating the expanding landscape of quantum-safe claims can be challenging for decision-makers. Organizations need proven, real-world deployments to guide their security strategies with confidence. Enterprise buyers might be pressured into choosing one security technology over others depending on who is making the case, and require lengthy trial periods to determine what works and what doesn’t.
IonQ occupies a unique position in the industry as the only quantum computing company actively operating a live, international quantum-safe security network. By integrating post-quantum cryptography and QKD directly into our own global operational infrastructure, we bridge quantum computing innovation with practical, real-world cyber defense.
In addition, IonQ separately has deployed QKD networks across government and financial sectors worldwide. Plus, in other previous projects separate from this new initiative, we worked with partners like Singtel to develop Singapore’s first Nationwide Quantum Safe Network Plus (NQSN+) for enterprises. IonQ also has aligned QKD and PQC in its Clavis and Clarion product lines.
The Roadmap to a More Secure Enterprise
This is the question none of us particularly enjoys: are we retiring cryptographic debt faster than we are creating it?
This hybrid QKD+PQC deployment marks a key milestone in our broader quantum networking vision. As quantum security evolves, fiber-based QKD networks will gradually expand into long-distance architectures, eventually leveraging quantum repeaters to eliminate trusted nodes and enable true end-to-end quantum security across global enterprises.
Transitioning to a quantum-safe security posture cannot wait for Q-Day. As rapid advancements in quantum computing compress defense timelines, enterprise and government leaders must act immediately to safeguard critical data. The shift to hybrid architectures begins now, and IonQ offers the proven, field-tested expertise needed to lead this transition today.
___
This post contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding our roadmap for QKD+PQC infrastructure and the capabilities of that infrastructure. For a note to our investors on forward-looking statements, please click here.
