Quantum-enabled framework for the Advanced Encryption Standard in the post-quantum era

Abstract

The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)-256 remains resistant to known quantum key-search attacks when keys are uniformly generated. We present quantum-enabled AES (QE-AES), a key-management wrapper that provisions unmodified AES-256 with output delivered by a commercial quantum random-number generator and periodically replaces epoch keys. Evaluation covers Special Publication 800-90B diagnostics on vendor-processed output, capture-backed performance, a live delivery probe, and a simulated correlation-power-analysis model. QE-AES does not enlarge the AES key space or provide masking; it supplies a separate source path and bounds key reuse under an independent-epoch assumption. Entropy delivery, rather than AES, is the principal performance constraint.