The commercialisation of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) solutions is well underway, and global technology intelligence firm ABI Research expects market growth to be dynamic and ramp up quickly over the next five years, despite an increasingly uncertain economic outlook.
The newly published U.S. NIST PQC standards (FIPS 203, 204 and 205), various national policies dictating PQC transition timelines (in North America, the EU and parts of the Asia-Pacific region), as well as the announcement of RSA and ECC deprecation, mean that the march towards PQC migration is inevitable.
“2030 is the PQC transition target year for priority industries such as government, defence and critical infrastructure in those regions,” says Michela Menting, the senior research director. “Dictated in large part by national mandates, these sectors have to start planning their migration today in order to meet the deadline.” The process is expected to be long and complex, and it will require assistance from several different experts as stakeholders move through the various migration phases. This will dictate market traction and technology adoption.
In the first instance, it’s about assessment and planning, driving a surge in PQC services to provide cryptographic asset discovery and inventory management, and transition strategies. This will make up the brunt of the market initially, expected to reach US$255 million globally by the end of the year. The second phase will be focusing on updating or migrating to new systems and integrating PQC technologies. This will require commercial point solutions that organisations can use, preferably off-the-shelf. ABI Research expects point solutions to grow much more dynamically across the forecast period, at a CAGR of 63%.
A host of small companies with strong PQC offerings are emerging with dedicated PQC services and technology solutions to the market. PQShield, Post-Quantum Solutions, CryptoNext Security, Secure-IC, Crypto4A, InfoSec Global, PQSecure, CryptoExperts, QuSecure, genua, wolfSSL, SEALSQ, ISARA and Quantropi each have a strong focus on cryptographic libraries and applications. They are accompanied by digital security leaders such as Thales, Entrust, Utimaco, IBM, Keyfactor, GlobalSign, DigiCert, Sectigo, Kudelski IoT, Rambus and Eviden, among others, offering their share of consulting services and PQC technology integrations.
The PQC market is still only nascent, and further standards for primitives and protocols are yet to be announced. “As such, there will be significant commercial opportunities for specific integration and specialisation by end markets, by application, and by use case. With an increasingly clear timeline on adoption, this market is expected to grow exponentially over the coming years,” Menting concludes.
These findings are from ABI Research’s Post-Quantum Cryptography market data report. This report is part of the company’s Quantum Safe Technologies research service, which includes research, data and ABI Insights.
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