White House PQC order ‘lights a fire’ under post-quantum transition
White House PQC order ‘lights a fire’ under post-quantum transition
Publish Date: 2026-06-23 17:41:00
Source Domain: federalnewsnetwork.com
The White House is accelerating the governmentwide shift to post-quantum cryptography through new deadlines and pilots, but key questions remain about how agencies will fund and carry out a complex PQC transition.
In an executive order signed Monday, President Donald Trump directs agencies to identify lead PQC transition officials within 30 days.
The order requires agencies to transition “high value assets” and “high impact systems” to post-quantum cryptographic keys by Dec. 31, 2030 and PQC digital signatures by the end of 2031.
Under the Biden administration, agencies had generally been planning to shift to the new algorithms by 2035.
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Trump’s EO builds on work in recent years to plan for a “cryptographically-relevant quantum computer,” or one that could break current data encryption standards. Cybersecurity experts are particularly concerned that U.S. adversaries could steal data today and decrypt using a quantum computer in the future, in what’s known as a “harvest now, decrypt later” strategy.
In 2024, the National Institute of Standards and Technology finalized the first post-quantum encryption standards and encouraged organizations to start the transition.
The accelerated deadlines in Trump’s new EO “really lights a fire under everyone to say, ‘hey, this is something that the government’s taking seriously,’” according to Garfield Jones, the former associate chief of strategic technology at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
“It drops it right in the CIO’s lap to say, ‘I’ve got to get this ready. This is not for somebody else’s tenure 10 years from now. It’s my tenure now that I have to get this done,’” Jones, who is now executive vice president for strategy and research at PQC firm QuSecure, told Federal News Network.
The EO directs the Office of Management and Budget to issue new PQC guidance to agencies within 90…
