The boss of Google has warned that quantum computers will be able to break encryption within as little as five years, signalling the growing threat to privacy such technological advances pose.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Sundar Pichai said there was huge potential for quantum computing to “allow us to understand the world in a deeper way”.

Unlike classical computers which use things called “bits” to process information, quantum computers use miniscule particles called qubits which means they have much more computing power – allowing them to perform calculations significantly faster than regular computers.

Google has been among the companies making huge strides inquantum computing, and last year said it had made a breakthrough in the field, developing a chip which could perform a calculation that took a classical computer 10,000 years to complete, in just 200 seconds.

Mr Pichai said a combination of artificial intelligence and quantum would “help us tackle some of the biggest problems we see”, but said it was important encryption evolved to match this.

“In a five to ten year time frame, quantum computing will break encryption as we know it today.”

This is because current encryption methods, by which information such as texts or passwords is turned into code to make it unreadable, rely upon the fact that classic computers would take billions of years to decipher that code.

Quantum computers, with their ability to be able to do reams of calculations all at once, in much less time, may soon be able to crack those same codes, making it possible to read encoded sensitive data.

Moving forward, a new “quantum encryption” would be needed, Mr Pichai said. “There are challenges, as with any emerging technology.”

His comments come amid growing pressure on technology companies to be able to protect their customers’ data from ever more sophisticated threats. Many businesses, like Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging app, use encryption to ensure messages remain private, and cannot be accessed by hackers.

Cyber criminals have in the past found other ways to gain access to people’s data through these apps, exploiting vulnerabilities.

Late on Tuesday, for example, allegations emerged that Amazon boss Jeff Jezos’s phone had been hacked through a WhatsApp message sent from a number belonging to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince.

Saudi Arabia called the claims “absurd” and called for an investigation into them.