The Coming Quantum National Security Crisis
Key takeaways
- ANNE NEUBERGER is General Partner and Head of Global Affairs at a16z and a Distinguished Fellow at Stanford University.
- China and Russia Are Harvesting Encrypted Secrets—and Getting Closer to Cracking Them
- Every two decades or so, a new technology upends national security.
ANNE NEUBERGER is General Partner and Head of Global Affairs at a16z and a Distinguished Fellow at Stanford University. From 2021 to 2025, she served as Deputy National Security Adviser.
China and Russia Are Harvesting Encrypted Secrets—and Getting Closer to Cracking Them
Every two decades or so, a new technology upends national security. In the 1940s and 1950s, the atomic and hydrogen bombs established nuclear deterrence. In the 1970s and 1980s, microelectronics led to the creation of stealth and precision weapons and early digital networks. In the 1990s, the Internet and the deployment of the Global Positioning System (GPS) remade communications. Now, of course, artificial intelligence is powering autonomous weapons and supercharging cyber-capabilities, but soon, it will be quantum technologies that transform myriad areas from exposing national security secrets to projecting military power.