AI Speeds Up Quantum Threat to Crypto, Security Experts Warn

Researchers and builders say artificial intelligence is speeding up the quantum threat to crypto by compressing timelines for quantum computing and reshaping how digital security works.

“AI is speeding up the quantum threat to crypto, security experts warn Researchers and builders believe that artificial intelligence may be accelerating the quantum timeline and forcing a broader rethink of how digital security works”

@coindesk

Alex Pruden, CEO of Project Eleven, said, “Between quantum and AI, we’re going to go into a world where security, and this is more broadly than just crypto, you simply cannot count on the way you’ve always done things,” as he warned that the security landscape “is going to be different.”

@coindesk

Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol and a former Google AI researcher, said, “AI is becoming more and more of an accelerator,” adding that “The rate of research is going to accelerate from here, and we have already seen progress that people didn’t expect would come this early.”

CoinDesk and Bitget both describe AI being used to optimize quantum error correction, which they frame as a key engineering bottleneck, while also warning that AI can strengthen hacking capabilities by identifying software vulnerabilities and cryptographic implementation flaws.

The sources also highlight the “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later” strategy, with Polosukhin saying, “If I know quantum computers are coming in a couple of years, I will start trying to capture all possible data that’s going around,” as governments and sophisticated actors collect encrypted traffic today.

CoinDesk frames AI as both a weapon and a defensive tool, saying AI is “simultaneously becoming a weapon for attackers, a defensive tool for developers, and an accelerator of quantum computing research.”

Pruden warned that AI could “accelerate… even more hacks,” saying, “You have these AI models that are able to find either implementation bugs in the underlying cryptography or increasingly, I think, break the cryptography itself.”

Cryptoast

At the same time, the same source says developers are deploying AI defensively for code auditing, testing and formal verification, and Pruden said, “AI can help with formal verification of post-quantum systems,” adding that it “That theoretically makes them more secure.”

The sources describe a shift away from treating security as static infrastructure, with Pruden saying, “Nothing is going to be as static as it’s been in the future,” and arguing that either “a quantum computer comes online to break some fundamental assumption, or AI gets smart enough to break that assumption too.”

CoinDesk also says multiple ecosystems, including Ethereum, Zcash, Solana, Ripple and NEAR, are researching or implementing post-quantum migration strategies, and it notes NEAR’s plan to integrate post-quantum cryptography into its account infrastructure to allow users to rotate cryptographic schemes without migrating assets to entirely new wallets.

Beyond crypto, the sources connect the quantum timeline to broader security and compliance, with Portail de l'IE describing quantum computing as threatening to render current encryption obsolete and upending “global geopolitical and economic balances.”

“The crypto industry has spent years debating whether quantum computing poses an existential threat to blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum”

CoinDesk

Thierry Breton, then European Commissioner for the Internal Market, is quoted warning, “Technological standards are of strategic importance,” and the article ties Europe’s stakes to its ability to set standards and protect “the values of the European Union.”

Cryptoast reports that Google has set a deadline for post-quantum cryptography resistance by 2029, quoting Google’s blog framing the “boundaries of quantum computing” as “closer than they appear.”

Cryptoast also says Ethereum has made quantum risk a “priority” for 2026 and points to a Bitcoin-side defense including “BIP-360,” while Silicon reports that Palo Alto Networks’ Anand Oswal said AI and quantum computing will enable breaking encryption “at an unprecedented speed.”

Silicon adds that the U.S. government has set 2035 as the deadline for federal agencies to complete their migration to PQC standards, and it quotes NIST-related guidance through Dustin Moody’s explanation of “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later” as adversaries collecting encrypted data now for future decryption.