Quantum computing company PsiQuantum is one step closer to its goal of building the world’s first useful quantum computer, breaking ground on a 1 million-qubit quantum facility that scientists say is powerful enough to crack Bitcoin’s code.
PsiQuantum co-founder Peter Shadbolt shared photos of the Chicago site in a post on X on Thursday, saying the 500 tons of steel housing the computers were assembled in six days.
PsiQuantum announced in September that it had raised $1 billion to work with chipmaker Nvidia to build a facility designed to house quantum computers that function even with errors.
sauce: peter shadbolt
PsiQuantum added that the facility will house one million qubits of quantum computing power, the equivalent of tens of billions of common computers, with the goal of making quantum computing commercially useful and supporting “next generation AI supercomputers.”
Some in the Bitcoin community have warned that the advent of quantum computing could put Bitcoin’s encryption at risk.
Some Bitcoiners argue that such a compromise could jeopardize the network, which currently holds $1.4 trillion in assets, while others, such as Blockstream CEO Adam Back, argue that quantum computers will not pose a real threat to Bitcoin for at least a decade.
Bitcoin developers are currently debating whether to take immediate action against quantum threats through a hard fork, and if so, what steps should be taken.
Bitcoin ($BTC) Most vulnerable to quantum attacks are unspent transaction output (UTXO) wallets, or coins associated with wallet addresses that have never been used, many dating back to when cryptocurrencies were first invented.
The amount of qubits required to crack a Bitcoin key continues to be debated, but estimates are decreasing as quantum research progresses.
A preprint scientific paper published last month claimed that while a 256-bit key is used to encrypt Bitcoin, it takes about 100,000 qubits to crack a 2048-bit key.
The largest quantum computer developed by the California Institute of Technology has a size of 6,100 qubits.
PsiQuantum has no plans to attack Bitcoin
PsiQuantum co-founder Terry Rudolph said in July that the company has no plans to use quantum computers to derive private keys from public keys.
“There is no plan,” Rudolph said at the Quantum Bitcoin Summit hosted by Presidio Bitcoin. “We can’t hide this either. We’re a company with hundreds of people.”
Only 10,000 $BTC Taking a Legitimate Risk: CoinShares
Even if a quantum computer could decrypt Bitcoin, a study conducted in February by crypto asset management company CoinShares found that only 10,230 Bitcoins would be in quantum-vulnerable wallet addresses with publicly available cryptographic keys.
CoinShares said the sale of 10,230 Bitcoins, worth $728.2 million at current market prices, was “similar to a routine transaction.”
