Google bumps up Q Day deadline to 2029, far sooner than previously thought

Google has moved up its deadline to prepare for "Q Day"—when quantum computers will break current encryption protecting military, banking, and government secrets—to 2029, five years sooner than previously expected. Heather Adkins, Google's VP of security engineering, and Sophie Schmieg, a senior cryptography engineer, announced the accelerated timeline Wednesday, urging the industry to adopt post-quantum cryptography (PQC) algorithms to replace vulnerable RSA and elliptic curve encryption. The company is setting this aggressive deadline to pressure other organizations—including governments and financial institutions—to begin transitioning their security systems now before quantum computers render current protections obsolete.