The crypto industry has spent years debating whether quantum computing poses an existential threat to blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Now, researchers and builders believe artificial intelligence may be accelerating that timeline, and forcing a broader rethink of how digital security works altogether.<\/p>\n
Leaders working on post-quantum cryptography and blockchain security described a rapidly changing landscape <\/a>in which AI is simultaneously becoming a weapon for attackers, a defensive tool for developers, and an accelerator of quantum computing research.<\/p>\n \u201cThe security landscape of the future is going to be different,\u201d said Alex Pruden, CEO of Project Eleven, a company focused on quantum-resistant infrastructure for crypto.<\/p>\n \u201cBetween quantum and AI, we\u2019re going to go into a world where security, and this is more broadly than just crypto, you simply cannot count on the way you\u2019ve always done things,\u201d Pruden said.<\/p>\n The convergence of AI and quantum computing has become increasingly urgent following warnings from major technology firms and researchers that cryptographically relevant quantum computers may arrive sooner than previously expected<\/a>. While experts remain divided on exactly when a quantum computer capable of breaking modern encryption will emerge, many believe AI could dramatically compress development timelines.<\/p>\n \u201cAI is definitely being used to accelerate the development of quantum computing,\u201d Pruden said. Researchers are already using machine learning systems to optimize quantum error correction, one of the field\u2019s biggest engineering bottlenecks.<\/p>\n Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol and a former Google AI researcher, said AI has already been accelerating scientific discovery for years.<\/p>\n \u201cAI is becoming more and more of an accelerator,\u201d Polosukhin said. \u201cThe rate of research is going to accelerate from here, and we have already seen progress that people didn\u2019t expect would come this early.\u201d<\/p>\n Polosukhin pointed to his time at Google in 2016, when machine learning systems were already being used to discover new materials. \u201cIt might be that the next generation quantum computer will be built with AI and quantum computers of this generation,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s feeding into itself.\u201d<\/p>\n For security researchers, the threat is no longer simply theoretical. The growing concern is that governments and sophisticated actors are already collecting encrypted internet traffic today with the expectation that future quantum computers will eventually be able to decrypt it, a strategy often referred to as \u201charvest now, decrypt later.\u201d \u201cIf I know quantum computers are coming in a couple of years, I will start trying to capture all possible data that\u2019s going around,\u201d Polosukhin said.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything we\u2019re putting on the internet, if you\u2019re identifiable as a person of interest, you can assume will be decrypted in two years,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s most likely happening already.\u201d<\/p>\n The implications for crypto are especially severe because most blockchain networks rely on the same elliptic curve cryptography used across the broader internet. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could theoretically<\/a> derive private keys from public keys, allowing attackers to compromise vulnerable wallets and systems.<\/p>\n But researchers increasingly argue the bigger story is not quantum alone, it is the combination of quantum computing and AI creating a permanent security arms race.<\/p>\n Artificial intelligence is already becoming increasingly effective at identifying software vulnerabilities and implementation flaws. \u201cI would expect the advent of AI to accelerate\u2026 even more hacks,\u201d Pruden said. \u201cYou have these AI models that are able to find either implementation bugs in the underlying cryptography or increasingly, I think, break the cryptography itself.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time, developers are deploying AI defensively for code auditing, testing and formal verification, mathematical techniques used to prove software behaves as intended. \u201cAI can help with formal verification of post-quantum systems,\u201d Pruden said. \u201cThat theoretically makes them more secure.\u201d<\/p>\n The result, researchers say, is a future where security can no longer<\/a> be treated as static infrastructure that gets upgraded once every decade. \u201cNothing is going to be as static as it\u2019s been in the future,\u201d Pruden said. \u201cEither a quantum computer comes online to break some fundamental assumption, or AI gets smart enough to break that assumption too.\u201d<\/p>\n That shift is already beginning to force blockchain networks<\/a> to rethink how quickly they can evolve. Several ecosystems, including Ethereum, Zcash, Solana, Ripple and NEAR, are actively researching or implementing post-quantum migration strategies.<\/p>\n