Microsoft accelerates transition to Post-Quantum Age cryptography by 2029

Microsoft announced Tuesday that it is accelerating its security roadmap for the quantum era, saying that advances in quantum computing technology necessitate the replacement of existing encryption standards sooner than expected.

See also: MITRE publishes Post-Quantum Cryptography roadmap

“Advances in quantum research and development have shifted the risk horizon,” said Mark Russinovich, chief technology officer at Microsoft Azure. “We believe that cryptographically meaningful quantum computers could emerge sooner than expected – and the work required to prepare is significant, so organizations need to start now.”

To this end, Microsoft is accelerating the timeline of its Secure Quantum Era Program (QSP) with the goal of transitioning critical products and services to post-quantum era cryptography (PQC) by 2029. The company also plans to incorporate PQC requirements into its Secure Future Initiative (SFI).

Key areas of focus include upgrading network cryptography with the adoption of TLS 1.3, developing cryptographic flexibility for data at rest to facilitate changing cryptography without redesigning the underlying systems, and moving to PQC algorithms to secure chains of trust, such as code signing, certificate issuance, key protection, and update pipelines.

“This brings quantum readiness to the same disciplined engineering framework we use for other critical security outcomes: clear ownership, measurable milestones, and transparent progress,” Russinovich said. “Integrating these capabilities into our platforms enables customers to move sooner and with more confidence.”

See also: Trump order for rapid transition to post-quantum cryptography

Microsoft emphasized that cryptographic flexibility is essential for the transition to post-quantum era cryptography, underscoring the need to remove hard-coded algorithm assumptions, maintain sufficient information to reconstruct the cryptographic framework, and create systems so that algorithm upgrades become routine engineering rather than urgent rewrites.

This development follows the signing of an executive order by US President Donald Trump that sets strict deadlines for federal agencies to transfer high-value assets and high-impact systems to the PQC.

Earlier this March, Google announced a new program in its Chrome browser to ensure that HTTPS certificates are secure against the future risk posed by quantum computers. That same month, Google publicly committed to transitioning its infrastructure to be quantum-safe by 2029. Web infrastructure company Cloudflare has also announced similar plans to transition to PQC by the same year.

The threat is amplified by the “collect now, decrypt later” strategy, where adversaries can collect encrypted data now in the hope of decrypting it later when a large-scale quantum machine becomes operational.

Additionally, a team of researchers from Google revealed significant improvements to the quantum algorithm for breaking elliptic curve cryptography, specifically the 256-bit elliptic discrete logarithm (ECDLP-256), using fewer qubits and gates than previously realized.

See also: Majorana 1: Did Microsoft exaggerate about its quantum chip?

Separately, a team of academics from Caltech and Oratomic presented a new error-correction approach that could make Shor's algorithm practical with just 10,000 reconfigurable qubits, potentially breaking RSA-2048 and P-256.