I wonder how possible it is that IBM could have already gone further and are already cracking modern crypto in secret, e.g. funded by the NSA. Is that a crazy conspiracy idea, or actually a possibility?
I am investing in IBM under the assumption that this is an actual possibility. Their public QC roadmap actually looks like a realistic journey now.
I strongly believe that the NSA, et. al. currently have access to a very powerful quantum computer - likely constructed by IBM under contract.
The game theory around this is such that it is impossible for me to accept that there are zero secret quantum computers in existence by now. There is too much to lose by not playing that game as hard as you can.
(I deleted my previous edit because I had misread part of what you wrote.)
The challenge of building QCs - as evidenced by billions of dollars worth of research in them - is many orders of magnitude more difficult than say the Manhattan project. The latter put together the best of the best on the project. You are suggesting a scenario where a tiny fraction of the best of the best are secreted away, with many of their past collaborators unaware of their doings, and have successfully built a QC.
While the many brilliant best of the best who are working publicly, with many billions of dollars of research funding are currently only making very slow progress. It simply does not square.
For example their Accumulo OSS suggests they're capturing and storing a lot of data to analyze later. The Ghidra OSS being a best in class reverse engineering tool also suggests that alot of their work revolves around finding zero day vulnerabilities.
I would guess they probably don't have any actually useful and in production right now, but they probably have a few secreted away in development, so they will be ready to put them to use if/when they do become useful.