(This is a draft)

As I approached my Ph.D. graduation, the U.S. NIST post-quantum cryptography standardization competition was nearing completion, while China's standardization initiative was about to commence. Therefore, I concluded that post-quantum cryptography would soon reach full maturity, signaling the need to explore new research directions. After careful deliberation, I recognized my passion lies in computational number theory and chose it as my new research focus.  

Prompted by this shift, I began reexamining the relationships among large integer factorization, quantum computing, and post-quantum cryptography. I gradually grew skeptical about the capabilities of quantum computing, as quantum computers powerful enough to threaten cryptographic algorithms still had not materialized. Further exploration into large integer factorization revealed a surprising insight: the depth of research in this area was remarkably shallow, presenting substantial untapped potential.  

July 8, 2025
Kaiyi Zhang