Search: “ibm-quantum”

Hardware Fingerprinting FTQC via Quantum Decoder Timing

Quantum decoder timing on IBM Heron processors forms a side channel enabling device fingerprinting with 89% accuracy and workload inference.

The work demonstrates that wall-clock syndrome-decoding times on fault-tolerant quantum computers constitute a novel hardware side channel. Using per-shot decoder timings from three IBM Heron processors collected over 68 days, a passive observer can reconstruct detector-firing distributions, estimate logical error rate, infer code distance, and fingerprint the specific device with up to 89% accuracy versus 33% for random guessing. Noisy simulation based on Google's 105-qubit Willow processor distinguishes nine surface-code patches at 81% accuracy, showing the channel persists across vendors and code families.

arXiv cs.CR·Sep 10, 19:24 UTC · 5d agoResearch

Python Now Has a Post-Quantum Encryption Library

Schneier on Security·Aug 10, 11:02 UTC · Aug 10, 2026Industry1

Evaluating Verified Autonomy in Quantum Engineering

Quantum-Harbor lab and QIQCBench (49 tasks) expose wide performance gaps across 17 frontier agentic systems in verified quantum engineering.

Researchers built Quantum-Harbor, a virtual laboratory providing a controlled execution environment where scientific AI agents interacting with quantum systems can have both actions and conclusions directly verified. QIQCBench contributes 49 expert-authored tasks spanning calibration and control, error correction and compilation, and sensing and networking. Across 17 frontier agentic systems, verified performance varied widely, exposing a substantial gap between demonstrated capability and reliable autonomous operation.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL·Sep 15, 16:46 UTC · 1d agoAI research1

Certifying Adversarial Robustness of Quantum Classifiers under Known-Readout Query Access

Framework certifies adversarial robustness of quantum classifiers using only measurement statistics and finite-shot outcomes, demonstrated on IBM Quantum hardware.

The paper introduces a measurement-only certification framework for adversarial robustness of quantum classifiers under known-readout query access, requiring no tomography, parameters, or gradients. It returns a lower bound ruling out untargeted errors within a radius and an attack-independent upper bound witnessing an adversarial state, both estimable with finite-sample guarantees. Evaluations show the lower bound tracks exact optima on tractable instances while the upper bound stays informative when standard attacks fail. The method was validated on IBM Quantum hardware using 40 executions of two 8-qubit quantum neural networks.

arXiv cs.CR·Sep 10, 14:45 UTC · 6d agoResearch

Observational Indistinguishability and Integrity Blind Regions in Hybrid Quantum-Classical Workflows

Framework formalizes integrity blind regions in hybrid quantum-classical workflows, validated across 3,600 label interventions with conformal detection rules.

The paper presents a claim-relative evidence and reference framework for integrity of hybrid quantum-classical workflows, distinguishing structural blind regions caused by observational indistinguishability from finite-batch statistical misses. Experiments over 3,600 label interventions show exact label-path invariance for feature and prediction views. The geometry-aligned construction detects 343 of 2,700 conclusion-changing interventions using the conformal rule and 1,183 of 2,700 with the uncorrected union, with executed conformal clean false-action rates of 0.048-0.059.

arXiv cs.CR·Sep 15, 13:16 UTC · 1d agoResearch

How GPT-5.6 Sol helps run quantum computing experiments

OpenAI describes an MIT researcher using GPT-5.6 Sol with Codex to autonomously run and calibrate quantum computing experiments.

OpenAI published a case study showing how an MIT researcher uses GPT-5.6 Sol together with Codex to autonomously run quantum computing experiments, analyze results, and calibrate qubits. The post is a product application story rather than a new benchmark, paper, or model release.

OpenAI News·Sep 8, 17:00 UTC · 8d agoAI industry1

Real-Time Intelligence with IBM Time Series Models on Confluent

IBM Research post on the Hugging Face blog describes running IBM time series models on Confluent for real-time intelligence.

Hugging Face's blog published an IBM Research post titled 'Real-Time Intelligence with IBM Time Series Models on Confluent.' No article body was available for classification, so details are limited to the title. The title indicates guidance on deploying IBM time series models alongside Confluent streaming infrastructure for real-time analytics.

Hugging Face Blog·Sep 2, 13:49 UTC · 14d agoAI tools & infra

Automatic Key Exchange: faster, post-quantum secure origin handshakes for 45 billion daily connections (and counting)

Cloudflare's Automatic Key Exchange probes origins to lead with preferred key exchange, cutting HelloRetryRequests from 52% to 3.7% and enabling automatic post-quantum origin connections.

Cloudflare announced Automatic Key Exchange, an extension of Automatic SSL/TLS that probes each origin's supported key agreement algorithms and leads with the preferred one, favoring the post-quantum hybrid X25519MLKEM768. Rollover across roughly 45 billion daily origin connections cut HelloRetryRequests from about 52% to 3.7%, saving more than 150 ms of p90 handshake latency. Hundreds of thousands of domains now receive post-quantum origin connections without manual configuration, supporting Cloudflare's goal of quantum-safe encryption by 2029 to counter harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks.

Cloudflare Blog·Sep 8, 13:10 UTC · 8d agoResearch

Post-quantum cryptography adoption and the national security implications

Opinion analysis argues quantum computing favors nation-state espionage, leaving lagging post-quantum adoption at critical infrastructure exposed to harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks.

A CSO Online opinion piece argues that the extreme cost and infrastructure requirements of quantum computers will concentrate cryptographically relevant quantum capability among nation-states and a few corporations, favoring espionage and economic espionage over criminal monetization. It highlights harvest-now-decrypt-later risk to long-lived secrets, expert warnings such as Filippo Valsorda's, and diverging CRQC timelines with Google suggesting possibly 2029. The piece predicts governments, banks, and targeted sectors will adopt PQC first while utilities, small hospitals, and local government lag, widening exploitable gaps in critical infrastructure reminiscent of Salt Typhoon-style access.

CSO Online·Sep 9, 09:00 UTC · 7d agoIndustry

1.1.1.1 now supports post-quantum DNSSEC, all 2,420 bytes of it

Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 resolver now validates post-quantum DNSSEC signatures using ML-DSA-44, a 2,420-byte NIST algorithm, preparing DNS for post-quantum migration by 2029.

Cloudflare enabled 1.1.1.1 to validate DNSSEC signatures using ML-DSA-44 (algorithm 18), a NIST-standardized post-quantum signature with 1,312-byte public keys and 2,420-byte signatures, roughly 38x larger than ECDSA P-256. The large signatures exceed common DNS-over-UDP limits, forcing fallback to TCP and creating downgrade risks while conventional algorithms must be published alongside. Cloudflare cites the risk of a quantum computer breaking RSA/ECDSA signatures by 2030 and plans full post-quantum security by 2029.

Cloudflare Blog·Sep 10, 13:00 UTC · 6d agoTools1

Google Cloud Targets 2027 for First Major Post-Quantum Security Milestone

Google Cloud set 2027 for its first major post-quantum cryptography milestone to counter store-now-decrypt-later risks, migrating through 2028.

Google Cloud announced a post-quantum cryptography roadmap targeting its first major security milestone in 2027. The plan aims to mitigate store-now-decrypt-later harvest risks, with wider migration goals extending through 2028. The roadmap affects cryptographic protections for Google Cloud services and customer migration planning timelines.

Infosecurity Magazine·Aug 13, 15:00 UTC · Aug 13, 2026Industry

New Guidance Helps Businesses Verify Quantum-Safe Hardware Claims

TCG issued guidance to help businesses verify that trusted platform modules genuinely meet quantum-safe requirements.

The Trusted Computing Group (TCG) published new guidance aimed at proving that trusted platform modules (TPMs) genuinely satisfy essential quantum-safe requirements. The document gives businesses a way to validate vendor claims about post-quantum readiness in hardware security rather than trusting marketing assertions. This is a guidance publication, not an incident or vulnerability disclosure.

Infosecurity Magazine·Aug 24, 16:00 UTC · 23d agoAdvisory

EFI Pairs Without One-Way Puzzles: Oracle Separations from Communication Complexity

Theorists build a classical oracle where one-way puzzles fail yet EFI pairs survive, separating two candidate minimal assumptions of quantum cryptography.

The paper constructs a single classical oracle relative to which one-way puzzles do not exist, even with an unbounded verifier, while an EFI pair survives every classical-query distinguisher holding advice, making one superposition query at the end. Security is proven by reducing adversary knowledge to communication complexity for Vector-in-Subspace, with the superposition query bounded using random matrix theory. Relative to the oracle, quantum polynomial time offers no advantage on tasks with classical inputs and outputs and there is no proof of quantumness, separating the leading minimal assumptions of quantum cryptography.

arXiv cs.CR·Sep 10, 17:54 UTC · 6d agoResearch

Future-Proofing the Internet: Akamai Achieves End-to-End PQC

Akamai says it achieved end-to-end post-quantum cryptography across its network to future-proof internet traffic.

Akamai announced it has achieved end-to-end post-quantum cryptography (PQC) across its services. The company frames the move as future-proofing the internet against quantum decryption threats. No article text was available; details are limited to the announcement title.

Akamai Blog·Aug 19, 08:00 UTC · 28d agoIndustry

Optimizing Credential Blast Radius Through Trust Boundaries and Delegation Under Post-Quantum Authentication Costs

Academic paper models credential blast radius optimization across trust domains under post-quantum latency costs, cutting expected impact by up to 36%.

The paper formulates the joint selection of trust domains and credential-derivation structures under policy and latency constraints as an NP-hard optimization problem, showing the scalarized two-domain direct-issuance case reduces to a weighted minimum cut. In 195 of 230 exhaustive synthetic comparisons, joint optimization produced lower credential blast radius than choosing boundaries first, especially under chained delegation. A trace-derived replay using measured post-quantum authentication costs found the best design reduced expected impact by up to 36% relative to a single domain within the latency budget.

arXiv cs.CR·Sep 3, 23:42 UTC · 12d agoResearch

Why a cryptographic inventory is key for addressing the quantum computing threat

Tenable argues organizations need cryptographic inventories and phased plans to counter harvest-now-decrypt-later quantum attacks.

Tenable's blog warns that quantum computers will eventually break current public-key cryptographic algorithms, and that "harvest now, decrypt later" collection makes the risk operational today. It recommends building a comprehensive cryptographic inventory and executing a phased operational strategy to migrate toward quantum-resistant protection for stored and transmitted data.

Tenable Blog·Aug 28, 14:01 UTC · 19d agoIndustry

Post-quantum migration gets harder when every user holds a key

Quantus CEO Christopher Smith discusses post-quantum migration pitfalls, including oversized keys breaking IPsec, SSH and TLS, and hard-to-migrate blockchain user keys.

Quantus CEO Christopher Smith describes post-quantum migration findings from banks and hospitals, including forgotten default passwords, orphaned admin keys held by former employees and hidden password hashes on user devices. Larger post-quantum keys and signatures break size assumptions in IPsec, SSH, TLS and libp2p, while migrating blockchain user keys remains hard because every user must act. He argues boards should fund quantum migration like insurance by quantifying cryptographic failure risk, and warns a silent quantum break would be difficult to detect from outside.

Help Net Security·Aug 12, 00:00 UTC · Aug 12, 2026Research

Qodana 2026.2 adds post-quantum crypto checks for JVM code

Help Net Security·Aug 3, 00:00 UTC · Aug 3, 2026Vulnerability

Nearly half of enterprises have no one leading PQC migration

Axiad survey finds 46% of enterprises lack a single leader for post-quantum cryptography migration despite most maintaining cryptographic inventories.

Axiad research on post-quantum cryptography (PQC) readiness found 75% of respondents maintain continuously updated inventories of certificates, keys, and algorithms, but 46% have no single person owning the migration. About half have never formally assessed whether public-facing infrastructure supports post-quantum key exchange. 67% said the harvest-now-decrypt-later threat is an active priority, with competing priorities, budget constraints, and lack of regulatory guidance cited as top obstacles; executives were more confident than PKI practitioners.

Help Net Security·Aug 21, 00:00 UTC · 26d agoPolicy & legal

Operational Roles of QRNG-Derived Quantum Entropy in Bitcoin Proof-of-Work Architectures

arXiv study finds quantum-random entropy adds no Bitcoin PoW success advantage but helps assurance in fault and provenance scenarios.

The paper shows replacing classical entropy with QRNG output does not change honest Bitcoin proof-of-work success probability when candidate headers remain distinct. It introduces a reproducible benchmark measuring an entropy-efficiency factor and a reboot-diversity index, finding QRNG value only in assurance-oriented scenarios involving correlated restart faults, namespace reuse, and entropy provenance. Validation is simulation-based, with hardware-in-the-loop testing identified as future work.

arXiv cs.CR·Sep 4, 12:47 UTC · 12d agoResearch

LLM-Driven Algorithm Design for Quantum Circuit Synthesis based on Binary Decision Diagrams

QuantumEvo uses an LLM to evolve BDD variable-ordering heuristics, achieving a 70.9% tie-or-win rate on quantum circuit cost versus baseline methods.

The QuantumEvo framework uses an LLM as a heuristic generator for quantum-cost-aware BDD variable ordering in reversible circuit synthesis, searching over heuristics initialized from multiple families and selecting them by downstream quantum circuit cost. The discovered heuristic HGA-QE modifies the sifting step inside a genetic algorithm and achieves a 70.9% tie-or-win rate against the per-function best baseline, with strict wins on 13.5% of functions. Advantages are clearer on benchmark suites not used for heuristic discovery.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL·Sep 4, 16:25 UTC · 12d agoAI research1

The G7 tells industry to hurry up and prep for post-quantum encryption

A G7 working group report urges governments and industry to accelerate post-quantum cryptography migration, framing quantum risk as a near-term economic threat.

A cybersecurity working group formed at the June 2026 G7 Summit in France called on organizations to stop postponing migration of critical systems to post-quantum cryptography, warning that harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks against currently encrypted data exist today. The report was signed by CISA, the UK NCSC, France's ANSSI, Germany's BSI, Canada's CSE, Japan's NCO, and Italy's ACN. It also cautions that some NIST-selected PQC algorithms have already been broken on classical computers, reinforcing support for crypto-agility. The push aligns with a recent US executive order moving federal PQC migration timelines from 2035 to 2030, while Google and others target 2029.

CyberScoop·Sep 3, 19:29 UTC · 12d agoPolicy & legal

What your vendor says about PQC tells you if they are ready

Allot CTO outlines a telecom post-quantum migration playbook: inventory crypto, deploy hybrid ML-KEM on TLS first, and avoid missed interfaces.

Dr. Yaakov Stein, VP CTO of Allot, explains how mobile operators should triage post-quantum migration by data shelf life, protecting subscriber identity mappings, billing records, and call metadata that stay sensitive for years. He recommends starting with a comprehensive crypto inventory, then hybrid ML-KEM key exchange on TLS-protected 5G SBA and management interfaces, followed by IPsec backhaul and roaming links. Stein warns that migrations most often fail operationally through missed legacy interfaces such as SSH, RADIUS, or forgotten load balancers, and cites the early Kyber multi-packet TLS client hello issue as an example of middlebox incompatibility.

Help Net Security·Sep 1, 00:00 UTC · 15d agoIndustry

HyQuant: Hybrid-Precision Quantization for LLM Attention

HyQuant keeps most LLM attention states low-bit while preserving vertical-line tokens and local windows in high precision, maintaining near-lossless accuracy.

HyQuant is a hybrid-precision quantization framework for LLM attention that quantizes most attention states to low bits while keeping accuracy-critical vertical-line tokens and local-window states in full precision, selected via lightweight attention-pattern signals. In the prefill stage it uses a hybrid-precision attention operator, and in the decode stage it applies the same principle to KV-cache compression with fused dequantization and attention computation. Across diverse tasks, models, and datasets it maintains nearly lossless accuracy; code is available on GitHub.

Hugging Face daily papers·Aug 27, 20:00 UTC · 19d agoAI tools & infra1

Quantum Feature Engineering for Credit Default Prediction: When and Why IQP Circuits Help Linear Classifiers

Quantum IQP circuit features lift logistic-regression credit-default F1 from 0.462 to 0.517, beating Kernel PCA at an equal feature budget.

Using the UCI Default of Credit Card Clients dataset and five-fold cross-validation, an 8-qubit IQP circuit adds 16 features that raise Logistic Regression F1 from 0.462 to 0.517 (+0.055, p < 0.0001). Kernel PCA, the best classical non-linear alternative, reaches only 0.493 at the same feature count, with the gap surviving Benjamini-Hochberg correction across 12 tests (p = 0.00007). Only the linear classifier benefits, pointing to a linear-expressivity mechanism. Feature selection matters: Random Forest importance-guided selection reaches F1 = 0.523 while maximally uncorrelated features drop to 0.496.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL·Sep 9, 17:41 UTC · 7d agoAI research

Benchmarking Qwen3.8 27B quantizations: 4-bit holds up, 1-bit collapses

Quesma benchmarks Qwen3.8 27B quantizations: 4-bit Q4_K_M matches BF16 on key benchmarks while 1-bit collapses to random chance.

Quesma spent roughly $3,000 on Modal GPUs testing Unsloth GGUF quantizations of Qwen3.8 27B across GPQA Diamond, IFBench, and Terminal-Bench 2.1. The 17 GB Q4_K_M quantization matched the 55 GB BF16 model on Terminal-Bench 2.1 and showed little degradation down to 4-bit, while the 2-bit UD-Q2_K_XL dropped noticeably. At 1-bit, scores on GPQA Diamond fell to random-guess levels, with longer reasoning making results worse, and reasoning effort settings significantly affected outcomes.

Hacker News · AI·Sep 8, 14:49 UTC · 8d agoAI researchHN 56↑ · 30 comments1

Preparing for the Post-Quantum Era: A Call to Action

CISA and the G7 Cyber Security Working Group urge organizations to begin post-quantum cryptography migration, outlining five transition priorities.

CISA and the G7 Cyber Security Working Group jointly released "Preparing for the Post-Quantum Era: A Call to Action". The document urges governments and organizations to begin migrating sensitive data, authentication systems, and critical assets to post-quantum cryptography against emerging quantum computing threats. It defines five priorities: raising quantum-risk awareness, national PQC strategies, quantum-safe R&D, public-private partnerships, and integrating PQC into cybersecurity requirements and procurement.

CISA Advisories·Sep 3, 12:00 UTC · 13d agoPolicy & legal