Quantum Physicist at Fiber Connect: Fiber Optics Is the Nervous System That Carries It

ORLANDO, May 21, 2026 — A quantum computer capable of breaking the encryption protecting most digital communications could exist within three years, theoretical physicist Michio Kaku said Wednesday. Speaking here at Fiber Connect 2026, Kaku argued that “fiber infrastructure is the nervous system” through which quantum computing will eventually reach society.

Kaku, a professor at the City University of New York and co-founder of string field theory, delivered a keynote in conversation with Ryan Harring , director of partnerships and alliances at IonQ, the publicly traded quantum computing company. Together they traced quantum computing from its current early stages to what both said will be a fundamental reshaping of global commerce, communications, and infrastructure.

Photo of Quantum and theoretical physicist Michio Kaku and Ryan Harring , Director of Partnerships and Alliances, IonQ

How quantum computing works

Quantum computers do not compute on zeros and ones the way conventional digital computers do, Kaku said. They compute on individual atoms, exploiting properties of quantum mechanics that allow a single qubit, the basic unit of quantum computation, to exist in multiple states simultaneously.

That parallelism allows a quantum computer to evaluate thousands of possible solutions at once rather than sequentially. That parallelism allows a quantum computer to evaluate thousands of possible solutions at once rather than sequentially, making problems that would take a digital computer millions of years solvable in moments, Kaku said.

Every physical process in nature, from photosynthesis to DNA replication, operates at the quantum level, Kaku said. Digital computers, by contrast, are a human approximation built on zeros and ones that nothing in the natural world actually uses.

"Mother Nature is not digital," Kaku said. "Mother Nature is quantum."

The decryption threat

Harring said IonQ expects to reach the logical qubit count required to challenge RSA-2048 encryption, the mathematical standard protecting most internet communications, bank accounts, and government systems today, in the 2028 to 2029 window.

Adversarial nations including China are already harvesting encrypted data from fiber networks and storing it, intending to decrypt it once quantum computers reach sufficient capability, Harring said. The strategy is known as harvest now, decrypt later. The window to migrate to post-quantum cryptography, encryption algorithms designed to resist quantum attacks, is closing.

Kaku was skeptical that any existing solution is fully adequate.

"I have yet to see a definitive story that allows you to show without any doubt that you can stop a quantum computer from breaking into a digital computer," Kaku said.

Fiber as quantum’s nervous system

Quantum computers will remain centrally located for the foreseeable future, Kaku said. Most of their physical mass is devoted to cooling systems required to bring qubits to near absolute zero, or 0 Kelvin, the lowest temperature in the universe. The actual computation happens in a component the size of a small disc at the base of the structure.

Those systems will be accessed remotely, over fiber, through the device already in every pocket.

Fiber, Kaku said, is the architecture by which quantum computing reaches society, by which robots communicate with central systems, and by which autonomous vehicles receive instructions.

"Fiber optics is the nervous system of society," Kaku said. "Every aspect of society will be enriched and connected by fiber optics."