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Insider Brief

• Prediction markets point to a maturing quantum industry in 2026, with expectations centered on incremental engineering progress rather than breakthrough quantum advantage or mass-market disruption.
• Markets show broad skepticism that quantum computers will outperform classical systems in cryptography or complex biological simulation next year, even as governments and enterprises accelerate preparation for post-quantum security.
• Hardware scaling, fault-tolerant architectures, and system reliability are expected to dominate industry attention, while quantum remains a specialized, cloud-based tool rather than a consumer technology in 2026.

The quantum threat is no longer theoretical. As we look toward 2026, CTOs and CIOs responsible for network and IT infrastructure face a critical inflection point. The transition to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) will shift from optional to essential. Here are five predictions that should shape your strategic planning today.

The CRQC Race Accelerates

Expect a surge in vendor announcements claiming cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) capabilities within five years. PsiQuantum’s billion-dollar funding round to build million-qubit fault-tolerant systems and Quantinuum’s breakthrough demonstrations signal an industry reaching critical mass. While debate continues about timelines, the message for infrastructure leaders is clear. The assumption of having 5 -10 years to prepare is no longer a defensible risk posture. Major cloud providers, defense contractors, and nation-states are investing heavily in quantum capabilities, compressing the timeline considerably.

Regulatory Mandates Emerge

In 2026 we will see the first wave of binding PQC compliance requirements. Following NIST’s standardization of quantum-resistant algorithms in 2024, regulatory bodies worldwide are developing enforcement timelines. Financial services, healthcare, and critical infrastructure sectors should expect mandates requiring PQC migration roadmaps, with government contractors facing the strictest deadlines. The question isn’t whether to migrate, but whether you can demonstrate a credible transition plan to auditors and regulators.

Hybrid Cryptographic Architectures Become Standard

Pure quantum-resistant deployments will remain rare in 2026. Instead, hybrid approaches combining classical and post-quantum algorithms will dominate enterprise implementations. This pragmatic strategy provides defense-in-depth while allowing organizations to maintain operations with current and legacy systems. Your networking teams should begin evaluating hardware and software platforms that support cryptographic agility. The ability to swap algorithms without architectural redesign is critical as algorithms will now require management.

2025 turned out pretty much as I anticipated. What comes next?

AGI didn’t materialize (contra predictions from Elon Musk and others); GPT-5 was underwhelming, and didn’t solve hallucinations. LLMs still aren’t reliable; the economics look dubious. Few AI companies aside from Nvidia are making a profit, and nobody has much of a technical moat. OpenAI has lost a lot of its lead. Many would agree we have reached a point of diminishing returns for scaling; faith in scaling as a route to AGI has dissipated. Neurosymbolic AI (a hybrid of neural networks and classical approaches) is starting to rise. No system solved more than 4 (or maybe any) of the Marcus-Brundage tasks. Despite all the hype, agents didn’t turn out to be reliable. Overall, by my count, sixteen of my seventeen “high confidence” predictions about 2025 proved to be correct.

Here are six or seven predictions for 2026; the first is a holdover from last year that no longer will surprise many people.

1. We won’t get to AGI in 2026 (or 7). At this point I doubt many people would publicly disagree, but just a few months ago the world was rather different. Astonishing how much the vibe has shifted in just a few months, especially with people like Sutskever and Sutton coming out with their own concerns.
2. Human domestic robots like Optimus and Figure will be all demo and very little product. Reviews by Joanna Stern and Marques Brownle of one early prototype were damning; there will be tons of lab demos but getting these robots to work in people’s homes will be very very hard, as Rodney Brooks has said many times.
3. No country will take a decisive lead in the GenAI “race”.
4. Work on new approaches such as world models and neurosymbolic will escalate.
5. 2025 will be known as the year of the peak bubble, and also the moment at which Wall Street began to lose confidence in generative AI. Valuations may go up before they fall, but the Oracle craze early in September and what has happened since will in hindsight be seen as the beginning of the end.
6. Backlash to Generative AI and radical deregulation will escalate. In the midterms, AI will be an election issue for first time. Trump may eventually distance himself from AI because of this backlash.

And lastly, the seventh: a metaprediction, which is a prediction about predictions. I don’t expect my predictions to be as on target this year as last, for a happy reason: across the field, the intellectual situation has gone from one that was stagnant (all LLMs all the time) and unrealistic (“AGI is nigh”) to one that is more fluid, more realistic, and more open-minded. If anything would lead to genuine progress, it would be that.