Q-Day Index

RSA-2048 · launch target

A 0–100 measure of how close today's quantum hardware is to breaking RSA-2048 encryption, scored against a named, published resource estimate. Higher means closer. The honest reading today is low single digits — the trajectory is the story, not the digit.

WHAT THIS SCORE IS DISTANCE TO ↗
The Gidney 2025 estimate: 1,000,000 physical qubits, <1 week, to factor RSA-2048 with Shor's algorithm. This is a moving research target, not a law of physics — it fell ~20× from Gidney & Ekera 2019's 20,000,000 qubits (~8 hours) in six years, on algorithmic and error-correction progress alone, with hardware assumptions held identical. Read the anchor caveat →
FIELD FRONTIER · THREAThow this is defined ↗
02550751008.36/ 100 · THREAT
confidence band 4.188.36

The field's leading edge sits at 8.36 / 100, and today's real-world threat to RSA-2048 is low. The table below names every machine and its score. One system is non-zero today only because it is the sole machine with a publicly demonstrated below-threshold result — the ranking will shift as others clear that same bar. The rule, not our opinion ↗

COMPOSITE · INDUSTRY
1.04
mean across 8 scored systems
2 analog / out-of-category (N/A)
THE FORMULAhow it works ↗
Threat = LogicalCapacity
  × FidelityGate
  × ECSignal × 100
A multiplicative gate: zero standing error-corrected logical qubits → 0.000. That is the honest answer for nearly all hardware today.
Threat score — a gauge

Distance to the named RSA estimate. Multiplicative. Honest zeros everywhere a system lacks demonstrated error-corrected logical qubits. This is the headline and it stays uncompromising.

Readiness — stacked bars

Progress toward the preconditions (fidelity, error-correction, scale). Additive. NOT distance to breaking RSA. A machine can have real readiness and a 0.000 threat score at once — that is the correct, honest state of the field.

Per-system

System
Threat ⌀
Readiness ▭
Inputs
Google
Willow · superconducting · 2024
8.357
Σ 86.7
IBM
Heron r2 · superconducting · 2024
0.000
Σ 30.5
Quantinuum
H2-1 · trapped-ion · 2024
0.000
Σ 36.0
IonQ
Forte · trapped-ion · 2023
0.000
Σ 32.8
IQM
Garnet · superconducting · 2024
0.000
Σ 30.9
Atom Computing
next-gen (1,225-site array) · neutral-atom · 2023
0.000
Σ 37.8
Rigetti
Ankaa-3 · superconducting · 2024
0.000
Σ 26.4
USTC (Zuchongzhi)
Zuchongzhi 3.0 · superconducting · 2025⚑ region-gated
0.000
Σ 34.6
QuEra
Aquila · neutral-atom · 2022
category difference, not a low score
Pasqal
Orion Alpha · neutral-atom · 2024
category difference, not a low score

The raw 2-qubit fidelity column is deliberately not shown as a ranking. Each value carries its measurement method (XEB vs ECR vs RB vs …); these are not comparable to the third decimal. The cross-method problem, in full ↗

What would change this score

The threat score is gated on one thing above all: standing, error-corrected logical qubits, evidenced by a demonstrated below-threshold result. The readiness bars above show which preconditions each system has assembled toward that. Concretely, the frontier moves when:

01
More demonstrated below-threshold systems. Today only one system clears this bar (the public evidence rule ↗). Each new one that does is a step-change, not a decimal.
02
Standing logical-qubit count climbing. Demonstrations of one logical qubit must become standing registers of many. Physical qubit count alone does not move the threat score.
03
The anchor moving. A better Shor compilation could cut the target again (it already fell 20×). We track the published estimate and re-anchor with a citation. the moving anchor ↗

The visible climb

Prior-generation systems, shown for context. The climb is real and we show it. We do not publish a projected "Q-Day year" — a forecast is only as good as its model, and ours is held back until it is defensible. Receipts, not press releases.

2019
Google Sycamore
53 physical
2021
IBM Eagle (r1)
127 physical
2023
IBM Condor
1121 physical
Methodology & disclaimers

Every number on this page is vendor-published or peer-reviewed, carries its source, and links to a single methodology document — definitions are written once there, never duplicated here. Full methodology ↗ · cross-method comparability ↗ · neutrality firewall ↗

Announced, not scored
PsiQuantum
photonic · no qualifying specs
Xanadu
photonic · no qualifying specs
Alice & Bob
superconducting (cat qubit) · no qualifying specs
Diraq
silicon spin · no qualifying specs
Anchor: Gidney 2025 · arxiv.org/abs/2505.15917 · peer-reviewed · rendered from scoring.py
Invite scrutiny

See a number you disagree with?

This index is only as good as the scrutiny it survives. If a spec is wrong, a source is weak, a method tag is misapplied, or a system is missing — tell us. Concrete corrections improve every subsequent run. For long-form critique or anything you want a public record of, open a GitHub Issue instead.

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