Resource estimates for breaking RSA-2048 fell from 20 million to under 100,000 qubits in under a year

The analysis traces how successive papers between May 2025 and March 2026 cut estimated physical-qubit requirements for factoring RSA-2048 from the 2019 figure of about 20 million to potentially below 100,000. It links the shrinking estimates to the acceleration of regulatory PQC deadlines and rising urgency around harvest-now-decrypt-later.

Read the original at The Quantum Insider