Saudi Quantum Computing: Will It Kill Crypto?

Saudi Arabia and its deeper-than-thou pockets have finally set their sights on quantum computing, and they are now in it to win it.

On 24 November 2025, Saudi Aramco, the state-run energy and chemicals giant, announced that the new quantum computer is all plugged in and ready to play as the wider industry grappled with what its consequences could be for BTC and other blockchain networks.

Pasqal, a French quantum computing company, has supplied the Saudis with a computer that does 200 qubits (short for quantum bit), the basic unit of information in a quantum computer.

Meanwhile, Saudi Aramco has said that it will use the supercomputer’s quantum computing capabilities for industrial and research purposes for tasks such as modeling and materials research.

The deployment of the Middle East’s first quantum computer dedicated to industrial applications, in partnership with Pasqal, represents a significant milestone in our digital advancement, supporting our efforts to enhance operations, accelerate innovation, and explore new… pic.twitter.com/NfJDbbPdMA

— aramco (@aramco) November 24, 2025

Pasqal has described this supercomputer, housed at Aramco’s Dhahran data center, as its most powerful system delivered to date.

“The deployment of our most powerful quantum computer yet is a piece of history and a landmark for the Middle East’s quantum future,” Pasqal CEO Loïc Henriet said in a statement. “Pasqal continues its expansion, delivering practical quantum power to industry.”

While this is exciting for supercomputing enthusiasts, experts have warned that advances in this field can expose private keys or fake digital signatures. The real question is, how far removed is the technology from causing actual harm to crypto holders?

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Saudi Quantum Computing: Is 200 Qubits Enough For BTC’s Cryptanalysis?

The rate of quantum computing’s evolution has put security experts on edge as they point to repeated jumps in the technology.

A publication quoted Yoon Auh, Founder of Blots Technology, stating, “With so much effort and money going into this, breakthroughs are inevitable. Nobody knows when, but the threat is no longer theoretical. It still can’t break ECC or RSA today, but progress is steady.”

He added that governments are investing in quantum computing for reasons that are beyond just code breaking. “Quantum computing is the first technology that could become a global digital weapon not controlled by any political system,” he said.

However, it seems like there are still a ways to go before supercomputers begin to decrypt BTC. Research scientist Ian MacCormack explained that 200 qubits, in practical terms, is still small since current systems struggle with noise and short qubit lifespans, limiting the number of calculations.

“200 qubits is enough to do some interesting experiments and demonstrations, assuming the qubits are high quality, which is hard to do with even that few of them, but nowhere near enough to do error corrected computing of the sort you would need to run Shor’s Algorithm,” he said.

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In September this year, Caltech researchers revealed a 6000 qubits neural-atom quantum computer, which is still primarily used for experiments, simulations, and testing algorithms, and not for cryptanalysis.

Per experts, to actually threaten modern cryptography, a supercomputer would need to conduct thousands of error‑corrected logical qubits, translating to millions of physical qubits.

Justin Thaler, Research Partner at Andreessen Horowitz and professor at Georgetown University, expanded on the Q-Day threat, i.e., the moment when a quantum computer becomes powerful enough to crack private keys and forge digital signatures. 

He said, “What a quantum computer could do, and this is what’s relevant to Bitcoin, is forge the digital signatures Bitcoin uses today. Someone with a quantum computer could authorize a transaction, taking all the Bitcoin out of your accounts when you did not authorize it. That’s the worry.”

Current processors like Pasqal’s 200‑qubit machine and Google’s 105‑qubit Willow chip don’t have that kind of throughput. 

Christopher Peikert, Professor at the University of Michigan, summed it up saying, “Quantum computation has a reasonable probability, more than 5%, of being a major, even existential, long‑term risk to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. But it’s not a real risk in the next few years; quantum‑computing technology still has too far to go before it can threaten modern cryptography.”

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