Cybersecurity firm PQShield has joined the Cyber Research Consortium in Japan to participate in a program to strengthen the nation’s defenses against quantum-enabled cyberattacks. A grant from NEDO, a national research agency and innovation accelerator funds the CRC initiative.
As a member of the CRC, Oxford-based PQShield will work on projects to implement post-quantum cryptography protocols throughout Japan’s technology supply chain. This includes designing PQC primitives and collaborating with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology to align existing protocols with U.S. standards. Shuichi Katsumata, PQShield’s lead cryptography researcher in Japan, will spearhead the work.
The results of the project will be published in academic papers and submitted to relevant standardization bodies. Other organizations involved in the program include Mitsubishi Electronics, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Japan Electronics and the University of Tokyo.
Ali El Kaafarani, co-founder and CEO of PQShield, said the company is looking forward to helping build Japan’s technology supply chain as quantum-safe.
“Securing critical infrastructure from quantum computers requires strong collaboration between governments, universities and the private sector, and this project is an ambitious and necessary step to protect against the quantum threat,” he said. “Japan is an important market for PQShield and plays a critical role in the global technology supply chain. We are pleased to be working directly with NEDO and the government of Japan to help implement PQC across the country and protect against the cyber threats of the future.”
NEDO, short for New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, is involved in projects in energy, environmental and industrial technology, such as biomanufacturing, green innovation, moonshot research and post-5G.
PQShield’s involvement in CRC follows the August 2024 release of finalized PQC standards by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which includes provisions for general encryption and digital signatures co-developed by PQShield. In line with this, NEDO initiated its research under Japan’s K Program, which aims to advance quantum-resistant cryptography functionalities such as ring signatures, threshold signatures and threshold encryption.