DCW FRONTIER FOCUS

Your Weekly Technology Intelligence Brief

25th February 2026

Intelligence, Security, Infrastructure, Energy & Quantum Innovation

Welcome to this week's edition of DCW Frontier Focus, your essential briefing on the transformative technologies reshaping our digital economy. As we navigate an era of unprecedented technological convergence, this edition examines critical developments across artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, energy systems, digital infrastructure, and quantum computing.

This week's edition surveys a technology landscape in which competition, capability, and caution are accelerating simultaneously. From xAI's multi-agent Grok 4.2 launch and ByteDance's viral Seedance 2.0 video model shaking Hollywood, to the India AI Impact Summit drawing global leaders and trillion-dollar pledges, the AI race has broadened far beyond a US–China duel. On the security front, the Conduent breach has now grown to more than 25 million victims, North Korea's Lazarus Group is deploying Medusa ransomware against healthcare targets, and Amazon has disclosed a sophisticated AI-powered FortiGate campaign in which limited-skill actors used generative AI tools to scale attacks that would previously have required expert operators. Meanwhile, post-quantum cryptography is rapidly moving from research to live deployment, and a new Australian startup has demonstrated that breaking RSA-2048 may require far fewer physical qubits than previously assumed.

🤖  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

xAI Launches Grok 4.2 With Native Multi-Agent Architecture

Elon Musk's AI company xAI has released a public beta of Grok 4.2, marking one of the first large-scale consumer deployments of a native multi-agent structure. Rather than a single model responding to queries, Grok 4.2 uses four specialised agents that collaborate internally, debating conclusions and synthesising responses before presenting an answer to the user. The company reports a 65% reduction in hallucinations compared to the previous version, addressing one of the most persistent criticisms of large language models. A rapid weekly update cadence is also planned, drawing directly on user feedback. The model is available to premium subscribers across web and mobile platforms.

The release reflects a broader industry shift from individual language model improvements towards multi-model architectures in which diverse agents perform specialised reasoning tasks in parallel. For organisations evaluating AI tools for customer service, research assistance, or compliance workflows, multi-agent systems introduce new questions around auditability. If four internal agents produced an output, which reasoning step should be reviewed?

ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 Rattles Hollywood

Chinese technology group ByteDance has released Seedance 2.0, an AI video generation model that has quickly drawn attention and anxiety in entertainment and media circles. Within days of release, videos generated using the tool went viral globally, depicting Hollywood celebrities and public figures in strikingly realistic scenarios they had never filmed. The quality and accessibility of the model have prompted serious concern about consent, deepfakes, and the ability of existing content regulations to keep pace with generative video technology.

China's Cyberspace Administration responded by announcing a crackdown on unlabelled AI-generated content, penalising more than 13,000 accounts and removing hundreds of thousands of posts within a week of the launch of Seedance 2.0. However, enforcement is widely reported to be uneven across platforms. The episode illustrates that the challenge of governing AI-generated media is not primarily technical; the detection tools exist, but institutional: who has authority, and who has the will, to enforce labelling requirements at the scale of social media?

India AI Impact Summit: Global South Stakes Its Claim

The India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi drew over 250,000 registered participants this week, with AI chiefs from OpenAI, Anthropic, and major technology companies in attendance. Indian conglomerates Reliance and Adani jointly pledged 210 billion US dollars in domestic AI and data infrastructure investment, a figure that, while dwarfed by US and Chinese commitments, signals India's seriousness in positioning itself as a third pole in the global AI race. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the event, framing India's approach as one that rejects the bilateral US–China framing of AI competition.

The summit was not without controversy: an Indian university was asked to leave after a staff member presented a Chinese-made robotic dog as domestically developed, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates withdrew from a keynote address, citing the need to keep the event's priorities in focus. On the governance side, the EU formally endorsed the summit's declaration. However, observers noted that the statement did not address AI risks or safety, a significant departure from previous summit communiqués and a sign of the growing divergence between safety-focused and innovation-first regulatory philosophies.

Regulatory Context: EU AI Act Approaches Key Deadline

The EU AI Act's main provisions are scheduled to become fully applicable on 2nd August 2026, with the majority of obligations for high-risk AI systems coming into force at that date. The European Parliament's co-rapporteurs published draft amendments this week proposing to delay those obligations until 2nd December 2027, citing concerns about industry readiness. Political groups have tabled competing amendments, with the centre-left Socialists and Democrats and the Greens both seeking to reject several controversial omnibus provisions. The outcome will determine the compliance timelines facing AI developers and deployers across the EU and, given the Act's extra-territorial reach, internationally.

In the United Kingdom, the government remains committed to a sector-specific, innovation-friendly approach rather than replicating the EU model. Two reports on AI and copyright are due by 18th March 2026 under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, and a comprehensive AI Bill covering safety and potentially intellectual property is expected. However, its precise scope and Parliamentary timetable remain unconfirmed.

Apple Signals Major Push Into Wearable AI

Apple CEO Tim Cook has publicly signalled that Visual Intelligence will be the defining capability of the company's next phase of AI development, with a focus on wearable AI devices. The company's first major product launches of the year are expected in early March, with reports indicating Visual Intelligence features will extend across new form factors beyond the iPhone. The move positions Apple directly in the wearable AI space alongside smart glasses and AI-powered health wearables from Meta, Google, and a growing cohort of specialist manufacturers. In this market, the integration of always-on AI into personal computing is advancing rapidly.

🔐  CYBERSECURITY

Conduent Breach Grows to Over 25 Million Victims

The fallout from the ransomware attack on Conduent, one of the largest technology services contractors in the United States, has continued to grow this week. Conduent provides printing, document processing, and benefit payment services to federal and state governments. The number of individuals whose personal data was stolen has now been confirmed at more than 25 million. Conduent provides technology services that reach over 100 million Americans, meaning the breach touches food assistance programmes, unemployment benefit administration, and corporate payroll processing across a significant portion of the US population.

The incident has been described as among the largest recorded in early 2026, trailing only the 2024 Change Healthcare ransomware attack in scale. It illustrates a specific and persistent risk in outsourced government technology services. When multiple state agencies share a common third-party infrastructure provider, a single successful attack can produce cascading harm at a population scale that no single agency breach could match. For organisations assessing their own vendor risk exposure, this case is a clear prompt to review contractual obligations and data recovery rights under third-party service agreements.

North Korea's Lazarus Group Deploys Medusa Ransomware

The North Korea-linked Lazarus Group, also tracked under the names Diamond Sleet and Pompilus, has been identified deploying Medusa ransomware in attacks targeting an unnamed organisation in the Middle East and mounting an unsuccessful attack against a US healthcare provider, according to a report from Broadcom's Symantec and Carbon Black threat intelligence division. The development marks an escalation in the tactical repertoire of a group previously associated primarily with cryptocurrency theft and financial fraud, and represents a convergence of nation-state and financially motivated cybercrime.

For compliance and risk functions in healthcare, finance, and critical infrastructure, the Lazarus Group's adoption of commercially available ransomware-as-a-service tools is diminishing the technical barriers between nation-state actor campaigns and conventional criminal activity. Organisations that have focused their advanced persistent threat defences exclusively on espionage indicators should review whether their ransomware response playbooks adequately address state-sponsored attackers who may not respond to conventional negotiation or recovery frameworks.

Amazon Reveals AI-Powered Attack Campaign Against FortiGate Devices

Amazon Threat Intelligence has disclosed details of a sophisticated attack campaign observed between January and mid-February 2026 targeting FortiGate network security devices. The campaign is notable not for technical sophistication in exploiting software flaws, no FortiGate vulnerabilities were actually exploited, but for the method by which an attacker with limited technical ability was able to operate at scale. Investigators determined the threat actor used multiple commercial generative AI tools to assist with every phase of the attack cycle, including tool development, attack scripting, and target selection, effectively compensating for a lack of expert knowledge.

The campaign succeeded by exploiting exposed management interfaces and weak single-factor authentication credentials, fundamental security gaps. The broader significance, however, is the confirmation that generative AI is lowering the skill floor for conducting attacks at scale. Amazon's Chief Information Security Officer described the development as particularly concerning because AI helped an unsophisticated actor exploit basic security weaknesses across a large number of targets simultaneously. Organisations should review whether exposed management ports, default credentials, or single-factor authentication remain present in their environments, regardless of whether software is fully patched.

European Travel Giant Eurail Discloses Customer Data Breach

Eurail, the European rail pass operator covering Interrail and Eurail travel networks, has confirmed an unauthorised access incident affecting its customer database. The compromised information includes names, contact details, home addresses, and dates of birth; for some customers, particularly participants in the EU's DiscoverEU programme for young travellers, it also includes passport details, bank account references, and health information. The total number of affected individuals has not been disclosed. Eurail has notified relevant data protection authorities and engaged external cybersecurity specialists.

Adidas and Figure Fintech Among High-Profile February Breach Victims

The month's breach disclosures include a data incident at Adidas involving a licensing partner, with the Lapsus Group claiming responsibility for compromising over 800,000 files, including passwords, dates of birth, and technical data. Nevada-based blockchain fintech firm Figure has also confirmed a ransomware attack by the Shiny Hunterz group, with approximately 2.5 gigabytes of data affecting more than 900,000 individuals. Belgian hospital network AZ Monica was forced to shut down its IT servers following a ransomware attack, disrupting patient services, a reminder that healthcare remains one of the most persistently targeted sectors globally.

Wormable Cryptojacking Campaign Uses Sophisticated Multi-Stage Infection

Cybersecurity researchers at Trellix have disclosed a new cryptojacking campaign that uses pirated software bundles as lures to deploy a sophisticated XMRig miner without the victim's knowledge. The campaign employs a multi-stage infection chain with a time-based logic bomb, meaning the malicious payload activates only after a delay to evade sandbox detection tools. The dropper also exploits a Bring-Your-Own Vulnerable Driver technique to turn off endpoint detection software. The campaign's sophistication prioritises maximising the percentage of the victim's computing power devoted to mining, often to the point of destabilising the host system.

Additional Significant Incidents This Week

• China-aligned threat actor UnsolicitedBooker has been observed targeting telecommunications companies in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan with two distinct backdoors, LuciDoor and MarsSnake, marking a geographic shift from prior attacks against Saudi Arabian entities.
• A new mobile spyware variant dubbed ZeroDayRAT has been identified, enabling real-time device surveillance and data theft across Android and iOS platforms, with capabilities including location tracking, call interception, and camera access.
• Researchers studying major cloud password managers identified 25 distinct attack vectors against account recovery mechanisms, highlighting a systemic weakness in a security product category that many organisations rely on for enterprise credential management.
• The Google-Wiz acquisition has received unconditional European Commission approval, clearing the largest deal in Google's history and adding a major cloud security platform to Alphabet's portfolio.

⚡  ENERGY TECHNOLOGY

Battery Storage Crosses 250 GW Globally as Grid Integration Race Intensifies

The world's installed fleet of battery energy storage systems has surpassed 250 gigawatts for the first time, overtaking pumped hydroelectric storage, the technology that previously dominated grid-scale energy reserves, as the leading form of grid storage by capacity. Industry analyst Rystad Energy projects total battery storage additions will exceed 130 gigawatts and 350 gigawatt-hours globally in 2026, with China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Germany remaining the five largest deployment markets.

The Energy Storage Summit taking place in London this week (24th to 25th February) brought together European operators and investors to examine the economics of the next growth phase. A recurring theme was the interaction between battery storage and data centre power demand: AI data centres have become significant drivers of grid planning and storage procurement, creating a new category of buyer that requires guaranteed power availability rather than simple cost optimisation. Battery systems positioned between the grid and major data centre campuses are emerging as a distinct commercial segment, with several projects in advanced development designed to bridge the gap between what the grid can currently deliver and the uninterruptible power requirements of AI computing facilities.

Flow Battery Breakthrough Advances Safe Long-Duration Storage

Researchers have developed a next-generation proton-conducting electrolyte for flow batteries that substantially improves both safety and scalability, addressing two of the principal barriers to widespread deployment of flow battery technology for longer-duration grid storage applications. Unlike lithium-ion batteries, which store energy in solid cells that can overheat or catch fire, flow batteries store energy in liquid electrolytes that circulate between tanks, offering a safer, more scalable approach for installations that require many hours of continuous discharge.

Long-duration storage, defined broadly as systems capable of discharging for 4 hours or more, is receiving growing attention as the limitations of short-duration lithium-ion systems become apparent in grids that carry large volumes of intermittent solar and wind generation. For Commonwealth member states developing island or isolated grid systems, long-duration flow batteries are particularly relevant as an alternative to diesel backup generation.

Nuclear Expansion Momentum Continues Across Multiple Jurisdictions

The nuclear sector's expansion trajectory has continued this week, with several international co-operation announcements reinforcing the global character of the build-out. Korea Electric Power Corporation has signed a collaboration agreement with Spain's Grupo Dominguis Energy Services covering nuclear plant maintenance and expanding Korean nuclear services into the Spanish and French markets. A separate Korea–Turkey memorandum of understanding focuses on technology sharing for small modular reactors, digital transformation, and AI-based predictive maintenance.

In Canada, a consortium including Laurentis Energy Partners and BWXT Canada has been appointed as owner's engineer for two new Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at Bulgaria's Kozloduy nuclear power plant, targeting operation from 2035. The Emirates Nuclear Energy Company and Korea Electric Power have signed two agreements covering SMR co-operation and AI-based nuclear plant management across the wider Middle East. Tokyo-based Helical Fusion has signed a power purchase agreement with Japanese supermarket chain Aoki Super Company, an unusual arrangement in which a commercial retailer has committed to purchase electricity from a fusion reactor still in development, reflecting the growing seriousness with which industrial power consumers are engaging with fusion timelines.

Virtual Power Plants Emerge as Strategic Response to Grid Capacity Constraints

As traditional grid interconnection queues extend to multi-year waiting periods in the United States and several European markets, utilities and technology companies are accelerating investment in virtual power plants, networks of distributed energy resources including rooftop solar, home batteries, electric vehicles, and smart appliances that can be coordinated to act collectively as a dispatchable power source. The US Energy Information Administration projects 20 gigawatts of utility-scale battery storage additions to the American grid in 2026 alone.

The appeal of virtual power plants lies in their speed of deployment: rather than waiting for grid infrastructure upgrades and interconnection approvals, operators can aggregate existing distributed assets far more quickly than building new generation capacity. For policy-makers in Commonwealth jurisdictions managing rapid electrification alongside grid investment constraints, virtual power plant programmes represent a lever that can be activated relatively quickly with appropriate regulatory frameworks and utility co-operation.

🏗️  DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE

European Digital Sovereignty Moves From Principle to Investment

A recurring theme across European telecommunications developments this week has been digital sovereignty, the degree to which national and regional digital infrastructure is controlled, owned, and operated in ways that protect strategic interests. Major European operators, including Telefónica, Orange, and Deutsche Telekom, have issued a joint call for what they describe as the four building blocks of digital sovereignty: increased control, choice, competency, and critical scale. The statement reflects growing concern that Europe's dependence on non-European cloud infrastructure, network equipment, and AI platforms creates structural vulnerabilities that go beyond standard commercial considerations.

For Commonwealth member states with significant ambitions in the digital economy, the European debate has direct parallels. The question of which parts of digital infrastructure, satellite connectivity, cloud processing, edge computing, and telecommunications backbone should be subject to strategic ownership requirements or supply chain diversification mandates is increasingly a board-level question for both regulators and major enterprises. The DePIN movement, with its emphasis on decentralised ownership of physical infrastructure, represents one model for distributing infrastructure control, though its regulatory integration with national sovereignty frameworks remains largely unexplored.

5G-to-6G Transition Accelerates as Sensing Capability Gains Momentum

Early technical work on sixth-generation mobile networks is consolidating around a conception of 6G not merely as faster connectivity but as sensing infrastructure embedded in the physical environment. Integrated Sensing and Communications, a 6G architecture in which the same radio signals used to transmit data are simultaneously used to detect movement, location, and environmental changes, is attracting significant commercial investment. NVIDIA's one billion US dollar stake in Nokia to embed AI radio access network capabilities in 5G Advanced and 6G networks is the most visible signal of this convergence, with Samsung and SK Telecom also partnering on AI-RAN for 6G deployment.

The practical implications for industries beyond telecommunications are significant. A 6G network configured as a distributed sensing infrastructure could enable real-time factory automation, vehicle coordination in logistics operations, smart city environmental monitoring, and ambient safety systems without dedicated sensor hardware, for organisations planning five to ten year technology roadmaps, 6G's sensing capabilities represent an infrastructure layer worth incorporating into digital transformation planning now, particularly given that 5G Advanced, the interim step before 6G, is already being deployed in several markets.

UK 5G Policy Review Gathers Momentum Ahead of 2030 Deadline

The UK government's Mobile Market Review, launched at the techUK Future Telecoms Conference on 10th February, has begun receiving industry submissions this week. The review focuses on the investment conditions facing UK mobile operators, specifically the combination of high deployment costs and revenue pressure that risks slowing the build-out required to meet the government's commitment to universal standalone 5G access by 2030. Current progress is strong, with 83% of UK premises already able to access standalone 5G. Still, the final 17%, including rural areas, transport corridors, and coastal regions, presents the most commercially challenging coverage challenge.

For the DCW community, this review represents a live policy opportunity. The emerging regulatory framework for UK telecommunications will shape the environment in which Web3 applications, DePIN projects, and decentralised connectivity initiatives operate. The review's outcome will affect spectrum policy, mast planning approvals, and the competitive structure of the wholesale market, all of which have direct implications for organisations building on or alongside UK mobile infrastructure.

Satellite Direct-to-Device Connectivity Reshapes Coverage Expectations

The progressive rollout of low-Earth-orbit satellite direct-to-device services, in which standard mobile handsets receive connectivity directly from satellites without terrestrial infrastructure, is beginning to alter the baseline expectations organisations hold for connectivity coverage. Field tests of Starlink's direct-to-cell technology have confirmed messaging capability with standard devices, with broader data services to follow. Industry forecasts suggest that by 2029, approximately 75% of enterprises will incorporate low-Earth-orbit satellite connectivity as a complement to terrestrial networks, reshaping resilience planning for remote operations, emergency services, and logistics chains that span connectivity gaps.

⚛️  QUANTUM COMPUTING

Iceberg Quantum's Pinnacle Architecture Resets RSA-Breaking Qubit Estimates

Australian quantum computing startup Iceberg Quantum has published a significant architectural paper this week alongside a $6 million seed round. The company's Pinnacle architecture, based on a class of error-correcting codes known as quantum low-density parity-check codes, demonstrates how fault-tolerant quantum computing can be achieved with dramatically lower hardware overhead than previously assumed. As a concrete illustration of the implications, the paper shows how breaking RSA-2048 encryption, the standard underpinning a large proportion of internet security, could theoretically be achieved with fewer than 100,000 physical qubits.

This is significantly fewer than the millions of qubits previously cited in mainstream analyses, and the company reports that hardware partners, including PsiQuantum (photonics), Diraq (spin qubits), and IonQ (trapped ions), have all publicly projected timelines to build systems of this scale within three to five years. For organisations assessing post-quantum migration timelines, this development should be read alongside the broader acceleration signals noted last week: the window for completing cryptographic migration before a genuinely threatening quantum system exists may be narrower than institutional timelines have assumed.

Majorana Qubit Breakthrough Advances Noise-Resistant Quantum Hardware

Spanish and Dutch research teams, drawing on work primarily conducted at Delft University of Technology with theoretical analysis from the Madrid Institute of Materials Science, have published a landmark result in the journal Nature confirming the first successful single-shot readout of a Majorana qubit. Majorana qubits are a long-pursued category of quantum bit that stores information in a fundamentally more noise-resistant way than standard qubits: rather than residing in a fixed location, the information is spread across two linked quantum states, making it inherently resistant to local interference. The challenge has been that this same distributed storage made the information extremely difficult to measure.

The team solved this problem using a technique called quantum capacitance, which effectively serves as a global probe that can detect the system's overall state without localising the information. The experiment demonstrated parity coherence, the length of time the qubit maintained its quantum state, exceeding one millisecond, which researchers describe as highly promising for future quantum operations. For non-specialists, the significance is that topological qubits of this kind could eventually enable quantum computers that are far more stable and less error-prone than today's systems, potentially accelerating the timeline to practical quantum capability.

Scientists Identify Potential 'Holy Grail' Superconducting Material

Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology have reported signs of a rare triplet superconductor. This material can simultaneously transmit both electrical and spin signals with zero energy loss. If the initial findings are independently replicated, the alloy NbRe could become a foundational material for next-generation quantum computers that consume dramatically less power while operating with greater stability. The team notes that triplet superconductors have been on the wish list of quantum physicists for years, with their ability to transmit spin information without resistance potentially enabling quantum computers that combine computational power with energy efficiency in ways that current superconducting technologies cannot match.

Copenhagen Researchers Enable Real-Time Qubit Performance Monitoring

A team at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, has built a real-time monitoring system capable of tracking sudden performance changes in qubits approximately 100 times faster than previous methods. Using high-speed programmable logic hardware, the system can immediately identify when a qubit shifts from a reliable to an unreliable state, a capability previously impossible because standard testing methods took up to a minute, far too slow to capture fluctuations that occur hundreds of times per second. The discovery that even apparently stable qubits can degrade in milliseconds is a critical insight for the engineering of reliable quantum processors.

Post-Quantum Cryptography: From Research to Live Deployment

A major industry analysis published this week confirms that post-quantum cryptography has crossed a threshold from research pilots into live production deployment. Banks, telecom operators, cloud providers, and government agencies are implementing quantum-safe authentication, zero-trust access systems, satellite communications, and enterprise VPNs using NIST-standardised algorithms. However, adoption remains highly uneven: organisations with modern, cloud-native infrastructure are moving faster than those with legacy systems, where the performance overhead of new algorithms and integration complexity are creating meaningful delays.

The urgency of this transition was reinforced by SEALSQ, a semiconductor and post-quantum technology company, which this week launched the Geneva Quantum Centre of Excellence and announced an intensified focus on silicon-compatible quantum computing architectures. The company's approach integrates post-quantum cryptography directly into the hardware architecture, a security-by-design model that regulators and standards bodies increasingly view as the appropriate endpoint for quantum-resilient system design, rather than cryptographic software overlays applied retrospectively to legacy infrastructure.

Post-Quantum Migration Priority Reminder

Three regulatory migration roadmaps remain in force. UK NCSC: Complete full cryptographic estate discovery by 2028; highest-priority migrations by 2031; full PQC migration by 2035. EU Commission: First-step measures and national roadmaps by 31 December 2026; high-risk use cases complete by 31 December 2030. US SEC / PQFIF: Primary implementation targeting 2033–2035. The Iceberg Quantum findings this week strengthen the case for treating the earlier milestones in these roadmaps as hard deadlines rather than aspirational targets.

CONCLUSION

This week's developments reinforce a unifying thread that runs across every domain covered by DCW Frontier Focus: the distance between technological possibility and institutional readiness is continuing to widen, and the cost of that gap is escalating with each passing month.

In artificial intelligence, the week has been defined by breadth rather than depth, from multi-agent consumer deployment with Grok 4.2, to China's viral video generation challenging regulatory frameworks in real time, to India staking its claim as an independent AI power at the first Global South AI summit. The India event's declaration, omitting any reference to AI safety risks, while the EU simultaneously debates delaying its main AI Act provisions, signals that the global governance consensus that safety advocates hoped would emerge is fracturing under competitive pressure. The UK's copyright and AI reports due in March will be an important indicator of how the domestic regulatory landscape is evolving.

In cybersecurity, the Conduent breach's expansion to 25 million victims and Amazon's disclosure of a generative AI-assisted attack campaign represent fundamentally different threat categories that demand distinct responses. Conduent illustrates the systemic risk of concentrated technology dependency; the AI-powered FortiGate campaign illustrates that offensive AI capability is already democratising access to sophisticated attacks. Both threats require structural responses, supply chain diversification and vendor concentration risk assessment on one hand, and rigorous baseline hygiene (removing exposed management interfaces, enforcing multi-factor authentication, eliminating default credentials) on the other.

This week's energy technology story is one of scale and speed. As battery storage crosses 250 gigawatts globally and the London Energy Storage Summit explores the economics of the next phase of deployment, it confirms that the storage revolution is not theoretical; it is operational and commercial. The more strategic question for this year is whether the regulatory frameworks governing grid connection, planning approval, and market participation can keep pace with deployment ambitions.

In quantum computing, the Iceberg Quantum architecture, which found that RSA-2048 could theoretically be broken with fewer than 100,000 qubits and partner hardware timelines of three to five years, is the most significant development this week for risk-conscious decision-makers. Combined with the Majorana qubit readout breakthrough in Nature and the Norwegian University's triplet superconductor findings, the research pipeline is advancing faster than many organisations' post-quantum migration planning cycles. The message from the regulatory bodies, UK NCSC, EU Commission, and the US SEC, is that the timelines and standards already exist. The challenge is no longer analytical. It is one of organisational will and execution.

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Date of Publication: 25th February 2026

Eric Williamson

Director of Compliance and Risk, The Digital Commonwealth Limited

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