Implications of Quantum Information Processing On Military Operations

Abstract

This paper discusses the benefits and drawbacks of quantum computing and quantum cryptography, subsets of the field of Quantum Information Processing (QIP). This field uses quantum mechanics for information processing rather than classical mechanics and portends game-changing implications to technologies long-relied on by military organizations, including computing, communication, and cryptographic systems. QIP is an emerging area of research whose complexity and often counterintuitive nature makes it difficult to separate fact from fiction. This paper provides an overview of QIP from the perspective of military operations and proposes estimates when major breakthroughs might occur. As with any attempt at predicting the future, these estimates are just that, estimates, but included to provide a rough approximation.

Quantum mechanics allows a single quantum computer to compute as dozens or even hundreds of classical computers, known as ‘quantum parallelism.’ This is leading to a new paradigm in computing [1] as these computers undermine current public key infrastructure (PKI) encryption systems, including the Department of Defense (DOD) Common Access Card (CAC) system, as breaking this form of encryption would be a trivial effort [2]. Continuing work in lattice-, code-, hash- and multivariate-based cryptographic systems shows promise for being ‘quantum resistant’ [3-6], as they do not use the same basis for encryption as PKI.