Post-quantum cryptography is a topic that has quickly evolved from a theoretical concern to an active field of research, standardization, and implementation. That’s because cryptographers and academics around the world have worked together to bring new ideas, techniques and technologies to the problem – understanding the quantum threat, and developing the algorithms that will help defend against it.
PQShield has been right at the heart of that conversation.
We began as a spin-out of Oxford University in 2018, and since then we’ve grown to become a world-class collaboration of leading cryptographers, mathematicians and engineers, with the aim of empowering organizations with the ultimate quantum-resilient, fully PQC-compliant solutions.
In fact, we’ve been involved in the compliance effort from the very beginning. Many of our team were involved in the development of the NIST standardized algorithms, and have contributed to the ongoing process. We’ve worked with the likes of NCCoE (the National Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence), Mitre’s Post Quantum Cryptography Coalition, and other international standards bodies around the world.
The story of PQC has been a journey – from an academic concept, to the need for practical, real-world implementations against an inevitable threat. As it’s grown, PQShield has reflected this journey too, expanding to a team of 80, including a strong engineering team. Our engineers comprise many years’ experience in silicon, hardware, software, FPGA, side-channel analysis and fault-injection, and we know what we’re talking about when it comes to implementation and product security.
“It’s the algorithms that have changed, not necessarily the base principles behind the implementations,” says Ben Packman, Chief Strategy Officer, “I’m pleased to say that I can walk into pretty much any room in the world where the PQC conversation is happening, and we’ve got some expertise there that we can stand behind, on the right side of the conversation.”
This depth and breadth of experience means that PQShield is focused not just on the mathematics behind PQC, but also on the way it can be deployed. While working on standards and algorithms, we’ve also been building products that are designed not only to demonstrate those algorithms, but also to implement them, alongside security testing and state-of-the-art side channel and physical threat detection techniques.
Whether the solution is a small IoT device, or a much larger server-class device in software, our extensive experience provides what’s needed to solve some of the problems encountered, often as part of a more complex picture rather than a single point solution.
Meanwhile in hardware, PQShield excels at the security and implementation of PQC in a way that we think differentiates us from our competitors. Our products are optimizable, highly flexible and modular by design, meaning we can pick and choose the right products for a particular use case, customer, and vertical. Highly customer-specific use cases, like secure boot, benefit from this flexibility, as our customers can meet their constraints in terms of performance, security, and cost.
We’re already in a strong position in the field, with customers such as MicroChip using PQShield IP in silicon today. We’re also working with AMD and their customers in the networking space, as well as Lattice Semiconductors, making small-footprint devices available to the supply chain.
In the automotive space, we’re working with Mirise Technologies (Denso/Toyota) in Japan and we’re helping them to set the standards for PQC in vehicle technology over the next few years. In Defense, we work with the likes of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, often in the capacity of enabling with expertise, as the DoD (and other defense organizations around the world) prepare for the rollout of PQC.
We’re also working with systems integrators, and alongside partners such as Capgemini and EY to enable the quantum transition for enterprise customers.
In conclusion, PQShield is rapidly becoming a hub for industry expertise in post-quantum cryptography. We’re powered by an extraordinary team of world-leading cryptographers and mathematicians, and our engineering team builds some of the most optimizable, high security PQC products on the market. We work with industry leaders, governments and agencies to drive the conversation and regulatory landscape, and we’re aiming to ensure the legacy components of the world’s technology supply chain are updated for the quantum threat.
Watch our video here