Quantum will break encryption, and AI might hand it the key

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As enterprises rush to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) for faster detection and response to cyber threats, another, quieter race is underway, one that could render today’s security systems obsolete.

The rise of quantum computing, capable of breaking existing encryption standards, could trigger a cybersecurity reckoning. And ironically, AI might help accelerate it.

“Think of it as two exponential technologies colliding,” Saugat Sindhu, Global Head of Advisory Services in Cybersecurity & Risk Services at Wipro, told Moneycontrol. “The intersection of Generative AI (Gen AI) and quantum computing will be tenfold more dangerous because of the processing power quantum brings.”

And the biggest area that will be exploited is encryption.

Wipro’s latest cybersecurity report found that 75 percent of enterprises lack expertise to defend against AI-led attacks, and 86 percent of recent breaches involve nation-state actors, a sign of how quickly digital espionage is escalating.

Sindhu said enterprises must begin securing both AI models and the infrastructure underpinning them. “It’s a two-pronged model involving infrastructure hardening around post-quantum encryption and AI model hardening against adversarial attacks like evasion and data poisoning,” he said.

Venture capitalists like Accel’s Prayank Swaroop earlier told Moneycontrol that this next frontier, where quantum computing collides with AI, will redefine cybersecurity itself. “If quantum becomes real, existing cybersecurity solutions will fail,” he said.

“That again gives a large surface area for Indian founders to go after. Some founders should start investing time and energy toward it.”

Meanwhile, Coforge is building what Chief Technology Officer Vic Gupta calls “opinionated intelligence,” AI systems designed with strong operational guardrails. “Agentic AI will be central to cyber defence in the coming years,” Gupta told Moneycontrol. “Our goal is to ensure AI can autonomously detect, respond, and remediate without losing control of its boundaries.”

However, this same autonomy presents risk. According to Forrester’s Predictions 2026: Cybersecurity and Risk, at least one major public breach caused by Agentic AI is likely within two years, as autonomous models begin making real-time decisions in production environments.

The research firm warns that security teams must secure AI intent, enforce access controls, and track data origin.

Quantum computing, meanwhile, will force a fundamental rewrite of global cybersecurity protocols.

Forrester estimates that quantum-safe spending will exceed 5 percent of total IT security budgets by 2026, as organisations prepare for encryption methods to fail under quantum brute-force attacks.

Governments are responding too, as the US and European Union begin funding cryptographic agility and quantum migration initiatives, while India is assessing implications for data sovereignty and defence systems.

Gartner’s Cybersecurity and Risk Outlook 2026 echoes the warning, highlighting that while AI-led defence will continue to expand, overreliance on automation without human oversight could create systemic vulnerabilities.

The convergence of AI and quantum has created an unprecedented dilemma for Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs): the very technologies that can defend systems today may be used to dismantle them tomorrow.

“Ultimately, it comes down to staying a step ahead,” Sindhu said. “Threat modelling must now extend beyond networks and data to AI systems themselves.”

Analysts say most enterprises remain unprepared. Few have begun migrating to post-quantum encryption standards, and fewer still are testing AI models against quantum-era threats.

The future of cybersecurity, experts warn, will not be a contest of code versus code, but compute versus compute, with AI and quantum battling for control of the world’s digital locks.