France sets 2030 deadline for quantum-safe encryption

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French cybersecurity agency Agence nationale de la sécurité des systèmes d’information (ANSSI) is stopping the certification of products that lack quantum-resistant encryption, move that will force its government bodies and operators to shift away from conventional systems, Reuters reported.

The ANSSI would stop issuing such certifications by 2027, and businesses must buy only quantum-safe products by 2030, Samih Souissi, the agency’s chief of staff, expressed during the France Quantum conference. Souissi said the halt isn’t just a technical issue but “a matter of governance, industrial planning, regulation, and sovereignty.”

ANSSI approval is required for use by French government agencies and critical infrastructure, effectively phasing out older encryption.

Quantum technology innovation is becoming a “very substantial” market not just in Europe but worldwide. France is investing €3 billion ($3.5 billion) in a quantum technology plan, while the European Union (EU) and China are also exploring this technology.

Chief Innovation Officer at Capgemini, Pascal Brier, said demand is growing as banks and public services seek innovation. “That [quantum computing] market is becoming big. It’s going to ‌be ⁠very substantial,” he told Reuters.

IBM executive Jerry Chow (NASDAQ: IBM) has indicated that threats arising from quantum technology may begin to emerge by the mid-2030s. Additionally, Qperfect warned Reuters that the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), a system commonly utilized in blockchain technology, could be the first to be compromised.

“We face two challenges: auditing our products and securing all the data we hold in order to meet ANSSI’s requirements,” Fanny Bouton, head of quantum at OVHcloud, told Reuters. “As ⁠a ​French and European player, we face even more ​constraints, as we will need to align with all these standards,” she added, referring to ANSSI, the ​EU Commission, and U.S. NIST requirements.

France’s new policy move comes amid concerns about Q-Day, or the danger that quantum computers become more powerful and crack current encryption supports. When this happens, data in finance, healthcare, email, blockchain, and even digital currency wallets, which are protected by today’s algorithms, could be unlocked by quantum machines.

Understanding the threat: What is quantum-resistant encryption?

There is a scare in the tech world now that “sensitive data today could become vulnerable once quantum computers reach their full potential.” This advanced computing may yield a serious risk for enterprises, governments, and multinational corporations that rely on data security for their transactions.

Quantum computing is a computing paradigm that exploits the principles of quantum physics to solve certain classes of complex mathematical problems far faster than classical supercomputers ever could. While large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers remain under development, recent breakthroughs from Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and IBM suggest that genuinely viable quantum machines are now a matter of “when,” not “if.”

The core risk lies in encryption itself—the process of scrambling sensitive data into unreadable code that can only be unlocked with a specific decryption key. Quantum computers, once sufficiently powerful, are expected to be capable of breaking the mathematical foundations underpinning most of today’s encryption algorithms, including those securing financial transactions, healthcare records, email communications, and blockchain networks.

Perhaps the most urgent dimension of the quantum threat isn’t future-facing at all—it’s happening right now. Security researchers have identified a strategy known as “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later,” in which malicious actors collect and store encrypted data today, with the explicit intention of decrypting it once quantum computers become powerful enough to do so.

This means that even encrypted data considered secure under today’s standards could already be vulnerable—sitting in storage somewhere, waiting for the technology to catch up. The risk is most acute for industries handling long-lifespan sensitive data, including government records, financial transactions, healthcare information, intellectual property, and other regulated data categories where confidentiality must be preserved for years or decades.

This is, ultimately, the central logic behind ANSSI’s accelerated timeline: the migration to quantum-safe encryption needs to happen well before quantum computers actually arrive, precisely because data harvested today could already be at risk tomorrow.

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