RSA-260 Factored Using GPU Lattice Siever, Setting New Record

RSA-260 Factored

The Cognition research team has successfully factored RSA-260, a 260-digit number. This marks a new public record for the largest RSA Factoring Challenge problem solved, surpassing the previous record of RSA-250 set in February 2020. The factorization was achieved using a novel GPU lattice siever.

Technological Advancement

The team developed a GPU lattice siever that significantly optimizes the factoring process. This new technology reduces the cost of factoring numbers by a factor of 10 compared to the previous public state of the art. This efficiency improvement was a key enabler for solving RSA-260.

Implications for RSA Cryptography

While RSA-260 has been factored, current state-of-the-art RSA public keys are 2048-bit (approximately 617 digits), and 1024-bit RSA was deprecated in 2013. The research suggests that factoring RSA-1024 could be feasible for hyperscalers or frontier AI labs at a cost of approximately $30 million per number. However, RSA-2048 remains significantly more difficult, estimated to be a billion times harder than RSA-1024, and is not meaningfully affected by this work.

Role of AI in Complex Computation

The project utilized an AI agent named Devin, which autonomously handled measurements, cluster operations, and optimization. This demonstrates Devin's capability as a software engineer in solving complex problems at the intersection of computational number theory and GPU performance engineering, substituting for what would typically be a multi-month effort by specialized domain experts.