New milestones on the YFarmX Quantum Threat Tracker: standards, policy deadlines and hardware records on the road to Q-Day, with the source on every record.https://yfarmx.com/en-GBhttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-09-09-nist-will-adopt-the-strengthened-hqc-parameters-in-the-fips-207-draft/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-09-09-nist-will-adopt-the-strengthened-hqc-parameters-in-the-fips-207-draft/NIST confirmed on the pqc-forum that it plans to adopt the HQC team's proposed parameter changes in the Initial Public Draft of FIPS 207, the backup key-encapsulation standard. The 15 August proposal raises the error weights to add security margin without changing the code length, and NIST's Angela Robinson replied on 9 September: "NIST plans to adopt the proposed HQC-KEM parameter changes in the Initial Public Draft (IPD) of FIPS 207."Wed, 09 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTStandardhttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-09-08-ionq-publishes-a-compiled-blueprint-for-breaking-256-bit-elliptic-curve-signatur/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-09-08-ionq-publishes-a-compiled-blueprint-for-breaking-256-bit-elliptic-curve-signatur/IonQ published what it calls the first fully compiled, end-to-end resource estimate for computing a 256-bit elliptic curve discrete logarithm, the problem behind Bitcoin and Ethereum signatures: 19,397 physical qubits, 1,457 logical qubits and 39 million logical Toffoli gates on its "Walking Cat" architecture with quantum LDPC codes, running about 26 days. IonQ states this is an architectural study consistent with its roadmap, which targets systems with the relevant capabilities in the 2028 timeframe, and that no deployed digital asset or crypto platform was affected.Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTHardwarehttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-09-03-iesg-approves-standalone-ml-kem-key-agreement-for-tls-1-3/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-09-03-iesg-approves-standalone-ml-kem-key-agreement-for-tls-1-3/The IESG approved draft-ietf-tls-mlkem, "ML-KEM Post-Quantum Key Agreement for TLS 1.3", on 3 September 2026. The Datatracker history logs the move to "Approved-announcement to be sent" at 07:26 UTC and approval at 09:12 UTC, the same day it sat on the IESG telechat agenda. No RFC number is assigned yet. The document registers ML-KEM-512, ML-KEM-768 and ML-KEM-1024 as named groups in the TLS supported groups registry, which is ML-KEM standing on its own rather than the hybrid X25519MLKEM768 that browsers and clouds already run. Its intended status is Informational and the author is D. Connolly of SandboxAQ.Thu, 03 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTStandardhttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-08-31-ibm-nighthawk-r2-raises-circuit-throughput-about-25-times/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-08-31-ibm-nighthawk-r2-raises-circuit-throughput-about-25-times/IBM's Nighthawk r2 carries 120 programmable qubits, 218 couplers and 120 reset elements, 458 physical quantum elements in total. IBM reports more than 100,000 circuits per second against roughly 4,000 for its Heron processor, while holding Heron-class gate fidelity. The speed comes from active reset: linking a qubit through a tunable coupler to a cold environment pulls its effective T1 from a median of about 200 microseconds down to roughly 25 nanoseconds, and cuts initialisation error by around 25 times. IBM says the chip returns accurate results on circuits of more than 7,500 gates, which it counts as a 2026 milestone on its published roadmap. This is throughput, not error correction, and it moves nothing on the Q-Day estimate above.Mon, 31 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTHardwarehttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-08-31-rfc-10042-standardises-hybrid-ml-kem-key-exchange-for-ssh/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-08-31-rfc-10042-standardises-hybrid-ml-kem-key-exchange-for-ssh/RFC 10042, "Post-Quantum/Traditional Hybrid Key Exchange with the Module-Lattice-Based Key-Encapsulation Mechanism for Use in SSH", was published on 31 August 2026. It pairs ML-KEM with a traditional exchange rather than replacing it, so a break in either one still leaves the other standing. The authors are P. Kampanakis and T. Hansen of AWS and D. Stebila of the University of Waterloo. It is an Informational RFC rather than Standards Track, and the Datatracker records errata tags added on 2 September.Mon, 31 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTStandardhttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-08-27-rigetti-reports-wafer-scale-frequency-targeting-on-a-36-qubit-processor/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-08-27-rigetti-reports-wafer-scale-frequency-targeting-on-a-36-qubit-processor/A preprint posted on 27 August 2026 reports wafer-scale precision in setting transmon frequencies, the step that decides how many usable qubits come off a wafer. The authors report junction resistance tuned to 0.50 per cent, plus or minus 0.05, at 150mm scale, component-level yield of at least 98.8 per cent, and frequency targeting to about 30 MHz in both qubit and qubit-qubit detuning frequencies, on the Cepheus-1-36Q quad-module processor. It is an unreviewed preprint and the only published account of the result.Thu, 27 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTHardwarehttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-08-26-ibm-completes-its-acquisition-of-hrl-laboratories/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-08-26-ibm-completes-its-acquisition-of-hrl-laboratories/IBM completed its acquisition of HRL Laboratories on 26 August 2026. HRL brings silicon-spin qubits, which sit alongside rather than inside IBM's superconducting line, plus quantum sensing, quantum materials, cryogenics, control electronics, packaging and interconnect. Financial terms were not disclosed. Boeing and General Motors, HRL's former owners, continue to partner with IBM and HRL. IBM restated its roadmap in the same release: Starling is expected by 2029 to perform 100 million quantum operations, and Blue Jay is targeted for the mid-2030s.Wed, 26 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTHardwarehttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-08-26-first-quantum-safe-bitcoin-transaction-mined-on-mainnet/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-08-26-first-quantum-safe-bitcoin-transaction-mined-on-mainnet/A Bitcoin transaction protected by a quantum-resistant, hash-based lock was mined on mainnet in block 964,199 (txid 305a24ff...abab07). The Quantum-Safe Bitcoin scheme, designed by StarkWare's Avihu Levy with the implementation finished by engineer Tomer Giladi, uses signature grinding, so security rests on hash preimage resistance rather than key secrecy, and needs no soft fork. The transaction format is non-standard, so MARA's Slipstream service mined it, and the scheme protects only coins moved into its special output; StarkWare still argues a soft fork is the better long-term answer.Wed, 26 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTMilestonehttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-08-24-us-treasury-launches-a-quantum-readiness-task-force/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-08-24-us-treasury-launches-a-quantum-readiness-task-force/The US Treasury launched a public-private Quantum-Readiness Task Force to accelerate the financial sector's post-quantum transition, with workstreams on sector alignment, vendor readiness and digital-asset risk, and no new deadlines. The same day the GSA set out its execution of OMB memo M-26-15, which directs agencies to move faster to quantum-resistant security: a federal identity-management working group first met on 12 August with 40 participants from 17 agencies, and GSA's evaluation lab is expanding testing of post-quantum building access controls and PIV badges.Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTPolicyhttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-07-29-hawk-withdrawn-from-nists-additional-signature-process/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-07-29-hawk-withdrawn-from-nists-additional-signature-process/The HAWK team withdrew its lattice signature scheme from round 3 of NIST's additional-signature process after Anthropic disclosed that its Claude model had recovered signing-equivalent keys from HAWK-256 challenge keys, halving the lattice-reduction block size the best prior attack needed. The team said the mitigations required would leave the scheme uncompetitive. NIST's finalised standards, ML-KEM, ML-DSA and SLH-DSA, are unaffected.Wed, 29 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTStandardhttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-03-31-reality-check-hardware-is-still-far-from-breaking-rsa/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2026-03-31-reality-check-hardware-is-still-far-from-breaking-rsa/The gap is still wide: the largest gate-model processors demonstrated hold on the order of a thousand physical qubits (IBM's Condor at 1,121; Atom Computing's 1,180-qubit neutral-atom array), logical-qubit counts reach 96 (QuEra and Harvard, December 2025), and the highest-fidelity trapped-ion machines hold around 100 physical qubits, whereas even the most optimistic recent estimates require hundreds of thousands to a million physical qubits to factor RSA-2048.Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTHardwarehttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2025-11-05-quantinuum-helios-reaches-48-logical-qubits/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2025-11-05-quantinuum-helios-reaches-48-logical-qubits/Quantinuum launched Helios, a trapped-ion system with 98 physical qubits, up to 48 error-corrected logical qubits, and two-qubit gate fidelity of 99.921%.Wed, 05 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTHardwarehttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2025-10-21-ionq-crosses-99-99-two-qubit-gate-fidelity/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2025-10-21-ionq-crosses-99-99-two-qubit-gate-fidelity/IonQ reported the first four-nines (99.99%) two-qubit gate fidelity on its Tempo system, part of a roadmap targeting roughly 20,000 physical qubits by 2028.Tue, 21 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTHardwarehttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2025-08-28-nist-advances-fn-dsa-falcon-toward-draft-fips-206/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2025-08-28-nist-advances-fn-dsa-falcon-toward-draft-fips-206/NIST moved the draft of FN-DSA, the FALCON-based signature scheme set to become FIPS 206, toward public review, with a final standard not expected until late 2026 or 2027.Thu, 28 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTStandardhttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2025-06-23-eu-publishes-a-coordinated-pqc-roadmap/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2025-06-23-eu-publishes-a-coordinated-pqc-roadmap/The EU roadmap directs Member States to begin transition and inventories by 2026, complete PQC migration for all high-risk use cases by 2030, and address medium-risk systems by 2035.Mon, 23 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMTPolicyhttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2025-06-10-ibm-sets-a-path-to-a-fault-tolerant-machine-by-2029/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2025-06-10-ibm-sets-a-path-to-a-fault-tolerant-machine-by-2029/IBM laid out a route from its 156-qubit Heron and 120-qubit Nighthawk processors to Starling, a targeted fault-tolerant machine of around 200 logical qubits running 100 million gates by 2029.Tue, 10 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMTHardwarehttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2025-03-20-uk-ncsc-publishes-its-pqc-migration-timeline/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2025-03-20-uk-ncsc-publishes-its-pqc-migration-timeline/The NCSC set a three-phase national roadmap: discovery and planning by 2028, highest-priority migration by 2031, and full migration to PQC by 2035.Thu, 20 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMTPolicyhttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2025-03-11-nist-selects-hqc-as-a-backup-kem/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2025-03-11-nist-selects-hqc-as-a-backup-kem/NIST chose the code-based algorithm HQC as a fifth standard and a mathematically independent backup to ML-KEM, with a draft standard expected around 2026 and a final version around 2027.Tue, 11 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMTStandardhttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2025-02-19-microsoft-unveils-majorana-1-a-topological-processor/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2025-02-19-microsoft-unveils-majorana-1-a-topological-processor/Microsoft presented Majorana 1, an eight-qubit topological processor it says is a step toward a million-qubit chip, though several physicists said the accompanying paper did not yet demonstrate a working topological qubit.Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMTHardwarehttps://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2024-12-09-google-willow-shows-below-threshold-error-correction/https://yfarmx.com/tools/quantum-threat-tracker/2024-12-09-google-willow-shows-below-threshold-error-correction/Google's 105-qubit Willow chip was the first to show below-threshold error correction, with the logical error rate roughly halving each time the surface-code array was scaled up from 3x3 to 5x5 to 7x7 physical qubits.Mon, 09 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMTHardware