If you want the simplest distillation of the fight over quantum risk, here it is; A future cryptanalysis-class quantum computer could break today's public-key cryptography, yet no one can tell you the exact year it arrives.
That ambiguity is exactly where the RAND Corporation has stepped in, staking out a position that the migration to quantum-resistant algorithms must start now to blunt harvest now, crack later exposure. The question is whether this posture is prudence or provocation as agencies and industries plan capital-intensive upgrades.
The organization's influence as a major think tank and defense industrial contractor is not hypothetical. RAND's 2020 study on securing communications pulled together expert timelines, adoption friction, and consumer risk, crystallizing the idea that long-lived secrets are especially vulnerable to store-now, read-later interception. NIST then spent years running an open competition that culminated in 2024 with three finalized standards for post-quantum cryptography, including FIPS 203, 204, and 205.
That sequence of events makes this the right moment to examine whether RAND's quantum security agenda is calibrating policy or steering controversy. Overall, its approach is focused on the former, though it habitually and largely unintentionally stokes the latter.
Is RAND's Push For PQC Visionary Caution Or Inflated Urgency?
Before we debate RAND's role, we should settle on a few facts. The National Academies' assessment stresses that building a large-scale quantum machine remains highly difficult, and that the minimum timeline to a practical system is at eight to ten years in optimistic scenarios. RAND's 2020 report leans into that uncertainty by mapping downside scenarios in which a cryptographically-relevant machine (read: a sufficiently powerful machine) appears while migration is incomplete, a framing that aligns with U.S. agencies urging immediate mitigation planning via a joint CISA-NIST-NSA factsheet.
In short, RAND rated six national critical functions as high priority for assistance, including electricity distribution and the information technology products and services that will deliver the new crypto. Put differently, the organizations that ship protocols, certificates, and software updates are the bottleneck to everyone else's migration to PQC security, which is exactly why cryptographic agility keeps surfacing in guidance such as NIST's NCCoE migration playbook draft. So RAND is primarily lobbying the federal government for the sake of national security preparedness, and the fact that many businesses will ultimately need to adapt the guidelines it is arguing for is somewhat incidental to its goals.
Critics say RAND's urgency risks hard-coding premature standards costs, thereby harming businesses that will struggle to pay for defenses they may never need to protect themselves. What's more, critics suggest that the most likely vendors for providing mitigation measures are large businesses that already have extensive ties to the government, making the standards push a potential vector for funneling money to allies. There is some truth in the cost concern, especially for smaller operators, but at the same time it's hard to argue with RAND's viewpoint once you consult the DHS-sponsored analysis of critical functions.
In addition, plenty of skepticism remains warranted on RAND's proposed timelines. RAND cites mid-2030s estimates for the emergence of sufficiently powerful quantum computers, and reports expert views calling for around 2032 for cryptanalysis risk to become substantial.
Of course, those estimates exist in today's context, wherein big labs still struggle with scale. Flashy chips don't translate to near-term code-breaking risk, which is a point echoed in mainstream coverage of quantum computing devices that are decades from breaking RSA-class cryptography despite substantial national security interests.
The sober takeaway here is that regardless of who is correct regarding timelines and the best approach to mitigations and why, PQC migration can take longer than we want, and secrets intercepted today may still be sensitive tomorrow.
Collaboration Engine, Or Centralizing Force?
What distinguishes RAND's quantum computing work is how often it crosses borders.
The 2024 U.S.–Japan proceedings that RAND convened in Los Angeles read like a field guide to public-interest quantum, from translational research to ecosystem governance between allies. A separate 2023 RAND study surveyed allied industrial bases, highlighting the need to manage talent pipelines, standards adoption, and supply chains across like-minded partners so as to close any security gaps.
That sort of international choreography mirrors the typical flow of political summits where Washington and Tokyo pledge deeper integration on advanced tech, with quantum explicitly embedded in broader security cooperation and R&D frameworks. Given RAND's close relation with the U.S. government and its defense apparatus, the company is effectively conducting computer security diplomacy on the country's behalf to a significant extent.
Here's the Counterpoint
Global quantum policy is not a single race, and strident U.S. leadership can look like domineering ownership to those who are seeking autonomy for their own countries rather than integration. Smaller nations and open communities occasionally bristle when risk narratives translate to rigid rules, and geopolitical rivals like Russia and China are very unlikely to get on board with any set of standards or mitigations proposed by the U.S. or by an organization that they perceive to be a stand-in for it. That goes double for quantum computing issues specifically, as many interpret it to be an emerging strategically-important technology.
With that being said, RAND's own work flags the need for open research access in PQC and calls for careful policy design in its post-quantum perspective. That's a nod to a real tension which won't be resolved any time soon: security policy can enable markets by creating safe conditions for competition and growth, or it can choke or distort them by levying burdens that hit some participants harder than others.
What To Do About PQC Security
So what's the best approach to PQC security, in light of what RAND is advocating, and generally?
If you operate systems that hold long-lived secrets, the practical to-do list is fairly unglamorous. Start by aligning PQC adoption targets with the federal baselines proposed by NIST, because vendors are converging on the same destination and you will benefit from their roadmaps when you plan your inventory and sequencing. Then talk to your suppliers about how they plan to expose ML-KEM parameters and what signature stacks they will support as ML-DSA and SLH-DSA move through your software lifecycle.
For security leads facing near-term planning:
Build a cryptographic inventory that captures algorithm use by system, protocol, and vendor, following NCCoE recommendations.
Classify secrets by required confidentiality lifetime guided by NIST's threat framing.
Prioritize dependencies on certificate lifecycles and TLS libraries tied to NIST's PQC FIPS.
Ask vendors for documented upgrade paths aligned to the CISA quantum-readiness roadmap.
Define deprecation triggers that move systems off legacy algorithms as standards mature.
Where Does This Leave The Debate Over RAND's Role?
RAND's quantum security agenda occasionally reads like a well-crafted wake-up call, and wake-up calls are rarely delicate. At the same time, RAND's own documents admit uncertainty, both in the difficulty of catch-and-exploit campaigns and in the many factors that make migration hard.
A realistic investor or policymaker can hold both ideas at once. The threat is real, the timeline is blurry, and the work of upgrading the internet is tedious and expensive. Being willing to live with that ambiguity is why RAND's quantum security influence is probably net-positive so far.
It channels momentum into standards already moving through NIST and into allied coordination that is already reflected in bilateral commitments. The sharper disagreements, like whether QKD belongs in the baseline, will continue. The UK's posture against QKD in government is a reminder that not every shiny physics demo belongs in production, a view formalized in the NCSC's analysis. The practical center of gravity is still PQC.
In closing, RAND's quantum security program surfaces the right risks, it accelerates critical-path actors, and it sometimes chooses strong rhetoric to force attention. The cost of migration is not a reason to wait so much as it is a reason to plan.
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Sources:
China’s quantum satellite achieves entanglement at record distance
China reaches new milestone in space-based quantum communications
Proceedings: Harnessing Quantum Technology for the Benefit of Society
With eyes on China, U.S. and Japan vow new security collaboration
How to hard-fork to save most users’ funds in a quantum emergency
