War Department Details Post-Quantum Cryptography Roadmap The Pentagon is accelerating PQC adoption across military networks, weapons systems and the defense industrial base under a new strategy. The War Department’s first enterprise-wide strategy to transition military systems to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) sets firm deadlines to secure high-impact national security systems by 2030 and the broader force by 2031 as quantum computing threatens today’s encryption. The strategy outlined how the department will deploy quantum-resistant cryptography across military networks, command-and-control systems and weapons platforms. It followed one day after President Donald Trump’s June 22 executive orders on quantum innovation and national security. “Empowering the warfighter is the relentless objective that drives every program,” Pentagon CIO Kirsten Davies said in the strategy’s accompanying fact sheet. “To deliver on Secretary [Pete] Hegseth’s vision of the most lethal and dominant military force in the world, our networks must be impenetrable.” While practical quantum computers remain years away, officials warn adversaries could already be collecting encrypted military communications with plans to decrypt them once the technology matures — a threat commonly known as “harvest now, decrypt later.” The strategy aims to replace today’s vulnerable public-key encryption with quantum-resistant algorithms before that happens. Experts say national security systems must begin the transition now because migrating cryptographic infrastructure across the Defense Department will take years. “If there are other nations that get ahead of us as far as post-quantum cryptography is concerned, they have a head start in terms of security,” Prathibha Rama, computer engineer at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, said during CyberScape: The Federal Cybersecurity Summit in April. “They won’t have to worry about it in five to 10 years down the line when quantum computers are around. We’ll be behind.” DOW’s Enterprise Migration Strategy The plan establishes five priorities for the department’s transition: - Centralized