Preparing for a post-quantum world
Thoughtworks
Global tech consultancy blending design, engineering and AI to help businesses thrive through innovation.
We spend a lot of time working with clients on problems they have today, so they’re prepared for tomorrow. Things that might be problems five years down the line? Not so much. So a lot of the content we share is focused on issues for the here and now.
Nonetheless, we try to keep half an eye on the horizon. And occasionally, we like to delve into technologies that are some way off. Things like post-quantum cryptography.
The idea of quantum computing — to be able to utilize quantum mechanics to solve certain problems exponentially faster than traditional computers — has seemed like a brilliant idea that won’t happen any time soon. But the breakthroughs are coming at a mind blowing pace. Quantum computing looks set to be with us in the very near future.
The ramifications are profound, especially when it comes to things like cryptography: decrypting keys built using massive prime numbers might be tough using binary logic, but it’s child’s play in a quantum world.
Don’t hit the panic button yet: it might not be a today problem, but we’re still happy to share some ideas.
➡️ Three steps to post-quantum cryptography
Gitanjali Venkatraman’s guide to the post-quantum world gives practical advice on how to prepare.
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Thanks
Great article on MCP. There's a lot of confusion out there re what is MCP and its position in the Agent to Agent process. What its not is the protocol to enable A2A (discovery, authentication, PII sharing, commerce and agent pay). It sits at the commerce step as a gateway of sorts back into API and functions.
While I like the post, I'm still interested in the "ramifications" piece of it. Perhaps the conventional encryption algorithms are toys to Quantum Computing but the Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) which embraces complex mathematics (like Lattice, Multivariate cryptography etc.,) will shield the attacks. So, we can be hopefully positive.