‘Q-Day’ could be cybersecurity’s Armageddon The day may come as soon as 2029, much earlier than experts originally thought A hypothetical doomsday for quantum computing could be on the horizon, computer scientists have warned for decades. But cybersecurity experts are now racing against the clock after Google announced that this “Q-Day” could be here much sooner than originally anticipated. What is ‘Q-Day’? It is the hypothetical day that quantum computers will acquire “enough resources and stability to crack conventional cryptography,” said CNN. When that day arrives, it could spell disaster for millions of people’s private information, as “every financial transaction, medical file, email, location history and crypto wallet protected by today’s commonly used algorithms could be unlocked.” Unlike conventional computers, quantum computers utilize “quantum-mechanical phenomena” that allow them to “perform calculations that are practically impossible for even the most powerful supercomputers today,” said Forbes. Experts believe these computers could eventually crack RSA cryptography, the algorithm of prime numbers that helps to safeguard encryption. Some fear this could be accomplished “not in billions of years, but in hours or days.” Others believe some “bad actors may already be collecting encrypted data” in secret, said CNN. The Week Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives. Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. It was previously believed that Q-Day was still far into the future, giving the tech world plenty of time to prepare new safeguards. But Google recently announced it believes the day could arrive as soon as 2029, and