BTQ and ICTK Finish Design of Post-Quantum Security Chip

Global quantum tech company BTQ Technologies and its Korean partner ICTK have finished designing a security chip built for a world with working quantum computers. The chip pairs BTQ’s cryptographic accelerator, called QCIM, with ICTK’s PUF technology, which gives each chip a unique hardware identity drawn from tiny variations in how it was manufactured. The companies are now moving toward production and plan to ship test chips to customers by the end of the year.

What the chip does

QCIM, short for Quantum Compute-in-Memory, is BTQ’s cryptographic accelerator. It runs both today’s encryption and post-quantum algorithms, and it does the work inside the memory subsystem rather than shuttling data back and forth, which cuts power draw and latency. The point is crypto-agility, the ability to swap in new algorithms as standards change without redesigning the hardware.

The other half comes from ICTK’s VIA PUF. A Physically Unclonable Function turns microscopic manufacturing differences into an uncopiable hardware-rooted identity, so a device can prove it’s the genuine article before it joins a network. Together, the two pieces aim to give a chip both a trusted identity and quantum-resistant encryption at the silicon level.

According to the July 10 press release, BTQ is aiming the chip at connected devices, AI hardware, industrial systems, and other infrastructure where authentication and long-term cryptographic security matter.

The partnership and what comes next

The design work builds on a collaboration that started with a memorandum of understanding in May 2025 and grew into a $15 million joint development and investment agreement in October, covering design, validation, certification, and possible mass production. ICTK brings existing customers in telecom and finance, including the Korean mobile operator LG U+.

BTQ CEO Olivier Roussy Newton tied the work to recent U.S. executive orders pushing federal systems toward post-quantum cryptography, calling the finished design “an important step toward bringing BTQ’s security IP into deployable semiconductor infrastructure for the quantum era.”

The test chips going out by year-end aim to prove the design works before BTQ pushes toward volume production and a wider market launch.