With the arrival of quantum computers a matter of "when" rather than "if," governments in the US, UK, and EU are already mandating a shift to post-quantum cryptography (PQC). A new paper on the arXiv examines an often-overlooked aspect of that transition: how much energy the new algorithms consume on different types of hardware.
The authors benchmark the three NIST-standardised post-quantum algorithms on both constrained and general-purpose architectures. They focus on energy consumption rather than raw speed alone, since power draw is a critical constraint for battery-powered and embedded devices that will also need to meet the new security standards.
The study appears to be one of the first to systematically compare the energy footprint of these algorithms across such a range of hardware. While the abstract does not give specific results, the very existence of the benchmark underscores the practical challenges of migrating to PQC—especially on small, low-power devices that are often the hardest to upgrade.