President Donald Trump signed two executive orders Monday to accelerate the federal government’s transition to post-quantum encryption and reprioritize government financing to support the domestic quantum computing industry. 

The orders, which CyberScoop first reported on last year, direct the government to throw its weight behind the quantum computing industry. They are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to put its stamp on the development of another key emerging technology.

In May, the Department of Commerce announced letters of intent for more than $2 billion in federal financing incentives for nine quantum companies under the CHIPS and Science Act. Last year, the administration did something similar with its AI-focused executive orders and action plan that created special federal export programs for AI technology and equipment, directed federal agencies to mobilize federal financing tools to support the industry, and cut or curtail regulations that the administration said may impede domestic growth. 

Ahead of the signing, sources previewed details of those orders to CyberScoop. Per one of those sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss pending administration actions, a “whole of government approach is used to empower research and development into quantum computing, as well as quantum sensing [and other resources].”

They described the Trump administration’s attitude for propping up industry as “don’t let us miss out on prioritizing the feeders for the research or the development of quantum.” 

The second order requires federal civilian networks to adopt quantum-resistant encryption faster than the current 2035 deadline. The new encryption algorithms, vetted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, will protect against future quantum computer attacks. 

Agencies that miss the new deadline must report to the Office of Management and Budget explaining why. 

On hand for the signing were Department of Energy Undersecretary for Science Darío Gil, Department of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Federal Chief Information Officer Greg Barbaccia, and Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratisos.

Multiple executives from technology companies were also on hand for the order’s signing, complimentary of the government’s efforts in boosting the industry.

“IBM applauds the Administration for taking this important, timely step forward,” said IBM CEO Arvind Krishna in a statement. “Sound policy, sustained investment and public-private partnership are vital to sustaining U.S. quantum leadership and technological resilience. We’re proud to keep building on this foundation — strengthening U.S. competitiveness and bolstering national security as we shape the quantum future together.”

“At Google, we are proud of our sustained breakthroughs in quantum computing and post-quantum cryptography,” said Google President and Chief Investment Officer Ruth Porat. “Quantum computing is a transformational technology that can advance national security, drug discovery, energy solutions and more.”

Update; 6/22/26; 5:20 p.m.: This story was updated after the signing with details about the orders, signing ceremony attendees, and comments from IBM’s Arvind Krishna and Google’s Ruth Porat.

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Google is accelerating its timeline for migrating its products to quantum resistant encryption to 2029, the latest sign that tech leaders are worried that they haven’t been aggressive enough in planning for a post-quantum future.

In a blog posted Wednesday, vice president of security engineering Heather Adkins and senior staff cryptology engineer Sophie Schmieg said that Google and other tech companies have observed faster than expected advances in several quantum fields.

“This new timeline reflects migration needs for the PQC era in light of progress on quantum computing hardware development, quantum error correction, and quantum factoring resource estimates,” Adkins and Schmieg wrote.

Google is replacing outdated encryption across their devices, systems and data with new algorithms vetted by the National Institute for Standards and Technology. Those algorithms, developed over a decade by NIST and independent cryptologists, are designed to protect against future attacks from quantum computers.

While Google has said it is on track to migrate its own systems ahead of the 2035 timeline provided in NIST guidelines, last month leaders at the company teased an updated timeline for migration and called on private businesses and other entities to act more urgently to prepare.

Unlike the federal government, there is no mandate for private businesses to migrate to quantum-resistant encryption, or even that they do so at all. Adkins and Schmieg said the hope is that other businesses will view Google’s aggressive timeframe as a signal to follow suit.

“As a pioneer in both quantum and PQC, it’s our responsibility to lead by example and share an ambitious timeline,” they wrote. “By doing this, we hope to provide the clarity and urgency needed to accelerate digital transitions not only for Google, but also across the industry.”

Moving up Google’s internal timeline to 2029 – more ambitious than the U.S. federal government’s – is an attempt to get ahead of the problem. It also aligns with a growing belief among executives in the U.S. quantum sector, who say Chinese scientists and labs have achieved breakthroughs across several different fields of quantum computing over the past two years.

That too, is making U.S. tech policymakers anxious to more quickly implement newer encryption. Currently, the federal government is mandating that agencies switch over to quantum-resistant encryption by 2035, but CyberScoop reported last year that the White House has discussed the possibility of releasing its own executive order that would push agency timelines up to 2030 or sooner.

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After decades of development, quantum computing is now becoming increasingly available for advanced scientific and commercial use. The potential marvels range from accelerating drug discovery and materials science, to optimizing complex logistics and financial modeling.

But there’s a paradox to this trend: Quantum computing also poses a growing threat to data security.

The risk is that the algorithms and protocols currently used to secure devices, applications and computer systems could eventually be broken by malicious actors using quantum computing, compromising even the strongest security measures. By some estimates, widely used encryption standards such as RSA and ECC could be cracked by quantum computers as soon as 2029—a doomsday known as “Q-Day,” when current security standards would be rendered ineffective by quantum computing’s number-calculating prowess.

The possibility that quantum computing could break today’s data protection protocols is prompting chief security officers and chief technology officers to ramp up countermeasures. They’re doing it with post-quantum cryptography (PQC), a niche area of cybersecurity that is rising in priority across the business world. Lack of preparedness could be costly, with one report putting the potential U.S. economic cost of a quantum attack at more than $3 trillion. Even before that potential calamity, the current average cost of a data breach is upwards of $10 million, and that number will only increase commensurate to the scale of a quantum-induced breach.

That is why the quantum threat should not be treated as a concern only for forward-thinking executives. It must become a board-level issue for every enterprise. Organizations should launch a comprehensive PQC initiative that builds enterprise-wide awareness and updates digital systems and data assets to be resilient against quantum attacks.

Waiting until Q-Day would be mistake because people will not know when it occurs. It probably will not arrive with press releases or product announcements. Instead, in may unfold quietly as attackers try to maximize what they can steal before anyone notices. The reality is that sensitive data is already at risk of being stolen and stored away so it can be decoded – an attack referred to as “harvest now, decrypt later”- when Q-Day is a reality. Security pros need to give this immediate attention, even if the ultimate threat appears to be a few years away.

Quantum-proofing data at scale

Security teams are usually focused on immediate threats, but they still have a window of opportunity to prepare for Q-Day, as long as they start now. 

One interim measure underway is the transition to more robust versions of the digital certificates and keys that are already pervasive in business and everyday life. Such certificates, which act as identity credentials, are used to authenticate billions of users, devices, documents and other forms of communications and endpoints. The certificates contain cryptographic keys. Security teams are phasing in “47-day keys,” which are designed to expire and be replaced within 47 days—much more frequently than the current generation. It’s a step in the right direction, but not enough.

Establishing a hardened PQC defense requires much more than a standard software patch or upgrade to the public key infrastructure (PKI) used most everywhere to manage digital certificates and encrypt data. An enterprise-wide PQC strategy must be adopted and implemented at scale.

Consider the rapid rise of agentic AI, where organizations may need to assign digital identities to thousands or even millions of AI agents. That will require a level of authentication that goes well beyond existing infrastructure.

These projects will be led by the CISO but planning and execution should include other business leaders because post-quantum security must reach every part of the organization’s digital environment. Boards also need to be involved, given the governance stakes and the significant capital investment required. 

Developing a multi-year, multi-pronged strategy

Organizations in regulated industries—banking, healthcare and government, for example—are generally a step ahead in bracing for the post-quantum threat. Regardless of industry, though, few are fully prepared because readiness requires a detailed picture of an organization’s end-to-end data and security landscape.

In my experience, that holistic view is a rarity. For CISOs and their line-of-business colleagues, a good starting point is creating a comprehensive inventory of systems and data across the enterprise, then prioritizing what needs to be safeguarded.

Another important step is to begin testing and adopting the latest quantum-resistant algorithms and protocols that have been standardized by NIST. A growing range of PKI products and platforms support those specifications. That’s essential because the only way enterprises will be able to orchestrate, monitor and manage the scope of deployment is through automation.

Such updates are vital, but this isn’t a matter of simply replacing pre-quantum specs with newer ones. Because PQC will be a multi-year undertaking, organizations must bridge the gap between old and new. The best strategy for some will be a hybrid approach that combines classical cryptography and next-gen algorithms, though standardization remains a work in progress. Other organizations are driving toward a “pure” or unblended post-quantum model.

As for those harvest attacks, the best defense is straightforward: Encrypt your most sensitive long-lived data with quantum-resistant algorithms ASAP.

PQC is a shared responsibility

Unfortunately, there is no finish line in the race to quantum-era security. And even if an organization locks down its systems against emerging threats, there’s no guarantee that customers and business partners will do the same.

 Many vulnerabilities will still remain, which is why the business case for PQC includes protecting customer data and safeguarding reputation and brand trust as digital threats evolve quickly. Even today, a major breach can cost millions and inflict lasting damage to a corporate brand.

Quantum computing promises to bring many new capabilities to business and society—from transforming supply chain optimization and risk analysis, to enabling breakthrough discoveries in medicine and climate science. But the potential risks are just as substantial. After years of watching and waiting for quantum, business leaders have little choice but to take action.

Chris Hickman is the chief security officer of Keyfactor, a leading provider of quantum-safe security solutions. 

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President Donald Trump released his administration’s cyber strategy Friday, promoting offense operations in cyberspace, securing federal networks and critical infrastructure, streamlining regulations, leveraging emerging technologies and strengthening the cybersecurity workforce.

Trump also signed an executive order Friday directing agencies to take action to combat cybercrime and fraud.

A little more than half of the five pages of strategy text of the long-anticipated document is preamble, and two of its seven pages are title and ending pages. Administration officials have said the strategy is deliberately high-level, and the White House promised more detailed guidance in the future.

The strategy “calls for unprecedented coordination across government and the private sector to invest in the best technologies and continue world-class innovation, and to make the most of America’s cyber capabilities for both offensive and defensive missions,” the White House said in a statement accompanying its release.

Each of the six “pillars” of the strategy offer some prescriptions.

“Shaping adversary behavior” calls for using U.S. government offensive and defensive capabilities in cyberspace, as well as incentivizing the private sector to disrupt adversary networks.

It also says Trump will “counter the spread of the surveillance state and authoritarian technologies that monitor and repress citizens,” even as administration critics argue that his administration has fostered surveillance and repression against U.S. citizens.

The shortest pillar, “promote common sense regulation,” decries rules that are only “costly checklists.” The Biden administration expanded cyber regulations, spurring some industry resistance. But the Trump pillar does talk about addressing liability, a point of emphasis for the prior administration as well.

“Modernize and secure federal networks” talks about using concepts and technologies like post-quantum cryptography, artificial intelligence, zero-trust and lowering barriers for vendors to sell tech to the government to meet those goals.

To “secure critical infrastructure,” the strategy calls for fortifying not just owners and operators but also the supply chain, in part by focusing on U.S.-made rather than adversary-made products.

“We will deny our adversaries initial access, and in the event of an incident, we must be able to recover quickly,” the strategy reads. “We will galvanize the role of state, local, Tribal, and territorial authorities as a complement to— not a substitute for — our national cybersecurity efforts.” Some critics of the administration’s cybersecurity actions have contended that it has shifted the burden to state and local governments too much.

AI usage makes up the bulk of the pillar entitled “sustain superiority in critical and emerging technologies,” in addition to reflecting earlier parts of the strategy on the topics of quantum cryptography and privacy protection. That includes the protection of data centers, the subject of localized fights across the country over their location and resource costs.

The final pillar says the United States must “build talent and capability,” after a year of the administration cutting a significant number of cyber positions in the federal government. “We will eliminate roadblocks that prevent industry, academia, government, and the military from aligning incentives and building a highly skilled cyber workforce,” it states.

Some positive reviews rolled in about the strategy despite the late-Friday afternoon release, traditionally the time of week when an administration looks to publish news it hopes will garner little attention.

“As new and more sophisticated threats emerge, America needed a new national cyber strategy that captures the urgency of this moment,” USTelecom President and CEO Jonathan Spalter said in a news release. “The President’s strategy rightly recognizes that harnessing America’s unique mix of private-sector innovation with public-sector capacity is the best deterrence.”

Frank Cilluffo, Director of the McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security at Auburn University, was struck by the focus on deterrence: “This unified strategy determining a direction on offensive and defensive cyber operations and collaboration couldn’t be more timely.”

The Business Software Alliance cheered the call for streamlining cyber regulations, in particular.

A number of cyber vendors took note of the passages on AI. “Redirecting resources from paperwork to AI-powered security capabilities is the only way to keep pace with modern threats and adversaries who operate at great speed,” said Bill Wright, global head of government affairs at Elastic. “This strategy appears to recognize that fundamental truth.”

Not all the reviews were flattering, however, including from the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, Bennie Thompson, who said the strategy’s “underachieving” was the only thing impressive about it.

“What little ‘substance’ does exist in this pamphlet is a mishmash of vague platitudes, a long catalogue of ‘we will’ statements that may or may not match the Administration’s current behavior, and, mercifully, an apparent extension of some Biden-era policies,” he said. “Completely lacking is even the most basic blueprint for how the Administration will go about achieving any of its cybersecurity goals — an objective possibly hamstrung by the hemorrhage in cyber talent across all Federal agencies since Trump took office.”

The executive order Trump signed Friday coincides with the release of the strategy but there’s little overlap between the subject matter; the strategy makes one mention of cybercrime.

The order directs the attorney general to prioritize prosecution of cybercrime and fraud, orders agencies to review tools that they could use to counter international criminal organizations and  gives the Department of Homeland Security marching orders to improve training, in addition to other steps, according to a fact sheet.

“President Trump is unleashing every available tool to stop foreign-backed criminal networks that exploit vulnerable Americans through cyber-enabled fraud and extortion,” the fact sheet states.

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