The National Institute of Standards and Technology (National Institute of Standards and Technology or NIST) of the United States issued a notice stating that it is seeking candidates for post-quantum algorithms.
The Institute (NIST), of course, is worried in advance about the fate of encryption after the release of quantum computing systems that will be able to break any key encryption in minimal time.
The agency said in a statement that once these computer systems became widely available, "they would seriously jeopardize the confidentiality and integrity of digital communications on the Internet and elsewhere."
The specific announcement, as you understood, invites scientific programmers to develop "new standards of public encryption keys, digital signatures, and in general algorithms that will be able to protect sensitive government information even after the widespread use of quantum computers.”
NIST estimates that it will have something useful within a year, and has set 30 in 2017 in November. Until then, you can submit your suggestions.
We should mention that if you approve a proposal, it will not be released directly to the general public, as it will take at least 20 years of testing.
According to the Institute: “Historically, they need almost two decades to develop our state-of-the-art public encryption key infrastructure.”
http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/ST/post-quantum-crypto/