In a nutshell: Researchers at China's Tsinghua University believe they have discovered a quantum-based algorithm capable of breaking today's most complex encryption standards. The team claims that the algorithm can be run using currently available quantum technologies, too. If true, the lifespan of today's encryption could be drastically reduced to nothing in a handful of years. Tsinghua University professor Long Guili and his team claim to have developed a new, qubit-saving factorization algorithm that could spell trouble for cryptographic security standards in the not-so-distant future. The algorithm, called sublinear-resource quantum integer factorization (SQIF), claims to optimize the quantum calculation process…