I’ve been sitting on this for a veeeery long time.

If you’ve followed me on YouTube or Instagram, you know I’ve been talking about quantum threats forever. Fun fact: the very first video I ever uploaded to YouTube was a 1.5-hour seminar on quantum cryptography for ESTIN Algeria. I'm so excited that it's finally relevant for everyone else.

As we head into 2026, the cryptographic transition is graduating from a “someday” thing to being mandatory across governments, critical infrastructure, and big companies that don’t want to wake up one day with broken security.

So this is THE moment we have been waiting for.

The Quantum S.H.I.F.T. is a bi-weekly briefing on what’s actually happening in quantum land including what’s real, what changed, and why you should care (and how to take advantage of this opportunity)

S.H.I.F.T. stands for:

1. Status Report: What changed & why it matters.
2. How it Works: One concept in plain English.
3. Investment Watch: Where money & power are moving.
4. Field Notes: Real-world lessons from my experience helping transitions.
5. Tangent: Anything else I want to discuss... 

Let’s get into it.

Status Report (The Intel)

• Stanford demonstrated room-temperature entanglement on a nanoscale chip... without dilution refrigerators.

  They built a nanoscale chip that creates entangled particles without million-dollar freezers.

  Translation: removes a major deployment bottleneck for quantum networking research.

• Google quietly moved the RSA goalposts

  New estimates suggest 2048-bit RSA may be breakable with under ~1 million physical noisy qubits (down from 20 million) under optimistic error-correction assumptions.

  Translation: long-term risk timelines are compressing faster than expected.

• China vs. Google isn’t slowing down (updated in December 2025)

  China’s Zuchongzhi 3.0 is chasing raw speed. Google’s Willow is chasing error correction.

  Translation: different strategies, same pressure on classical public-key crypto.

How It Works

The Concept: Quantum Entanglement

If you’ve got kids, you already understand quantum entanglement via Elf on the Shelf.

Before December starts, Santa prepares two magical things at the same time:

• A Scout Elf for your house

• A matching Elf record that stays with Santa

They’re created together, which is why they’re linked (aka share the same state).

The Rule

You’re allowed to look at the Elf.

But if anyone touches it, moves it, or messes with it, the magic breaks.

There’s no way to fix it quietly.

The Classical Way

In a normal world, Santa would rely on messages.

Reports get sent.
Signals travel.
Messages can be intercepted or altered.

Trust depends on protecting the channel.

The Quantum SHIFT

With the Elf, there is no message.

The Elf isn’t reporting back.
Santa isn’t receiving updates.

Instead, both sides check their own record.

If the magic is intact, everything behaves exactly as expected.

If someone touched the Elf at any point?

The magic doesn’t line up anymore because the shared state was disturbed.

What That Means

Nothing has to travel between Santa and your house.

No information is transmitted this way... only correlations are revealed.

But interference can’t be hidden.

The system itself remembers it.

That’s entanglement.

Why This Is Weird (and Powerful)

In classical systems:

• You protect messages

• You assume observation's harmless

In entangled systems:

• Observation changes the system

• Interference leaves fingerprints

Trust gets enforced by physics... not rules or software.

Entanglement means two things stop behaving like separate objects and start behaving like one system, even when they’re realllllllllllly far apart.

Investment Watch

• Quantinuum × Qatar’s $1B joint venture

  It’s a 10 year play. Not a funding round… more of a sovereignty move.

  Governments are buying control.

• Nu Quantum raised $60M

  Biggest Series A ever for quantum networking.

  Processors need pipes to scale... These are the pipes.

• Morgan Stanley took 7% of IonQ

  Wall Street officially cares now.

Field Notes (Where People Are Still Getting This Wrong)

One thing I keep seeing in the field is orgs (& people) treating quantum risk like a future mythical technical problem instead of the present risk management problem that it *CURRENTLY* is.

That distinction ~really~ matters.

From a risk perspective, you don’t wait for the event to happen.

You look at:

• Likelihood over time
• Impact when it happens
• Cost of mitigation now vs. later

Quantum fails all three tests if you delay.

1. The Threat Window's Already Open

Risk isn’t about when quantum computers exist like many believe. Think of it more about how long your data needs to stay secure.

Adversaries are already harvesting encrypted traffic with the assumption that it will be decrypted later. If you’re protecting data with a confidentiality horizon of 5–10 years, that data is already exposed by today’s standards.

This is a classic deferred-risk problem.

2. The Impact Isn’t Incremental

When RSA fails, it's not graceful or forgiving...

It’s a whole trust collapse:

• Certificates quit being trustworthy
• Digital signatures stop proving authenticity
• Secure channels quit being secure
• Identity systems stop being reliable

From a risk lens, this is pure systemic failure.

3. Delay Increases Both Cost & Blast Radius

Risk mitigation is cheapest when done early + deliberately.

Waiting compresses timelines, increases scope, and forces emergency decisions under regulatory and operational pressure. That’s when migrations get sloppy, expensive, and fragile.

Planned transitions are simple engineering projects, while unplanned transitions are total crisis response.

4. Early Action's a Risk Reduction Strategy

Orgs that move early are reducing exposure…. by a LOT.

They:

• Shorten the harvest-now-decrypt-later window
• Spread migration costs over time
• Avoid compliance pileups
• Maintain operational control

That’s textbook risk management.

Bottom line:

Waiting compounds risk into something unmanageable.

From a risk standpoint, the safest move is to start the SHIFT while you still have choices.

Tangent

2025 is the 100 year anniversary of quantum mechanics.

In 1925, Werner Heisenberg went to a remote island because his allergies were ruining his life. While attempting to breathe normally, he came up with the math that'd eventually lead to quantum mechanics… and, a century later, threaten the internet as we know it.

There’s a lesson there (and it isn’t to forego allergy meds to gain Megamind status... though I might try this Spring)

Big shifts don’t always have to start with grand plans. Sometimes they start with someone annoyed, uncomfy, and trying to fix a problem the best way they can.

Also… until you open that gift under the tree, it is simultaneously exactly what you wanted & definitely socks.

Quantum says both are true.

Observation ruins EVERYTHING :P 

Happy Holidays.

Enjoy the last few calm days of the classical world.

We start the SHIFT for real in January.

Addie LaMarr