"It's Quite a Shock": The Quantum Deadline Is Real

Cloudflare

Apr 14, 2026

#ThisWeekinNET — Episode 131

In this World Quantum Day special edition of This Week in NET, host João Tomé is joined by Bas Westerbaan (Principal Research Engineer) and Sharon Goldberg (Senior Director, Product) to explain why the timeline for post-quantum cryptography may be arriving sooner than expected.

Recent research suggests the number of qubits required to break today’s encryption could fall dramatically, accelerating the urgency for companies and the Internet ecosystem to migrate to post-quantum security. Google has set a 2029 migration target, and Cloudflare is working toward a similar timeline.

Bas, who has spent years deploying post-quantum cryptography at Cloudflare, explains why the shift from theoretical risk to practical planning is happening now, what “Q-Day” would actually mean, and why upgrading the Internet’s cryptography is one of the largest coordinated security transitions ever attempted.

The episode also covers the difference between post-quantum encryption and authentication, how quantum computers work, and what organisations should start doing today to prepare.

Check the Cloudflare Blog:
blog.cloudflare.com/post-quantum-roadmap

🎧 Subscribe to the podcast for weekly conversations about the Internet and Cloudflare:
https://ThisWeekinNET.com/

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Timestamps

0:00 — Cold open: “It’s quite a shock”

0:40 — World Quantum Day and why this matters now

2:30 — Sharon Goldberg: the big picture of post-quantum cryptography

4:20 — Why Cloudflare is targeting 2029

7:00 — Encryption vs authentication and the “harvest now, decrypt later” risk

10:50 — Bas Westerbaan: background and path into cryptography

18:30 — How quantum computers actually work

23:40 — Why RSA and elliptic-curve cryptography are vulnerable