BTQ and ITRI Validate QCIM Core for NIST Standards

Milestone Validation: BTQ Technologies and ITRI completed the first technical milestone of their multi-year collaboration, validating the QCIM core IP within a TSMC 28-nanometre design environment.Standards Acceleration: The QCIM architecture demonstrated accurate and efficient acceleration of cryptographic operations associated with NIST FIPS 203, 204, and 205 under demanding operating conditions.Commercial Path: The program advances to module-level integration, verification, and validation, with BTQ expecting to ship test chips to key customers and strategic partners by year-end.BTQ Technologies Corp. announced the successful completion of the first milestone of its multi-year collaboration with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) to validate BTQ’s Quantum Compute-in-Memory (QCIM) architecture for post-quantum cryptography. The collaboration forms part of the global QCIM chip roadmap led by BTQ and ICTK Co., Ltd. Completion of the milestone demonstrated the QCIM core’s ability to accurately and efficiently accelerate cryptographic operations associated with FIPS 203, FIPS 204, and FIPS 205, the post-quantum cryptography standards established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, under demanding operating conditions evaluated during the program.The validation confirmed the functional correctness and feasibility of the QCIM architecture within a TSMC 28-nanometre design environment. QCIM is BTQ’s soft IP cryptographic accelerator architecture designed to support both classical and post-quantum cryptographic functions in a compact, low-power block. By executing cryptographic operations inside the memory subsystem, QCIM is intended to reduce latency, power consumption, and data movement while supporting crypto-agile security across a range of chip architectures and connected devices.The QCIM core IP demonstrated crypto-agility by executing operations associated with the three finalized NIST post-quantum standards: FIPS 203 (Module-Lattice-Based Key-Encapsulation Mechanism, or ML-KEM), FIPS 204 (Module-Lattice-Based Digital Signature Algorithm, or ML-DSA), and FIPS 205 (Stateless Hash-Based Digital Signature Algorithm, or SLH-DSA). The architecture is also being developed to support additional post-quantum cryptographic algorithms as standards, customer requirements, and security environments evolve. Performance advantages across multiple post-quantum algorithms were confirmed during the evaluation.Milestone technical outcomes included:The program will now advance into its next phase focused on module-level integration, verification, and validation. This phase is intended to further evaluate how the QCIM core can be incorporated into broader system architectures while preserving functional correctness, interoperability, and performance. Independent validation of the core design reduces technical risk and provides a stronger foundation for system-level integration, prospective customer demonstrations, and discussions with semiconductor, infrastructure, and device partners.Backed by ICTK’s secure chip capabilities and ITRI’s validation results, BTQ expects to ship test chips to key customers and strategic partners by year-end for performance and functional validation. The next-generation QCIM quantum-security chip is being developed for use across IoT, AI devices, industrial systems, secure elements, edge devices, and other connected infrastructure where device authentication, security performance, and long-term cryptographic resilience are increasingly important. Target application areas include military, industrial, automotive, Internet of Things, Physical AI, and connected systems. This milestone demonstrates meaningful progress in validating compute-in-memory architectures for post-quantum cryptography. The next phase will build on these results through module-level integration and verification, helping advance the architecture toward broader system implementation.

Olivier Roussy Newton, CEO and Chairman of BTQ Technologies, stated that the milestone demonstrates the QCIM architecture can accurately and efficiently accelerate multiple NIST-standardized post-quantum cryptographic algorithms under demanding conditions while maintaining the flexibility required to respond to evolving security standards. Dr. Chih-Cheng Lu, Manager of ITRI’s Electronic and Optoelectronic System Research Laboratories, noted that the next phase will build on these results through module-level integration and verification, helping advance the architecture toward broader system implementation.BTQ intends to evaluate subsequent fabrication, demonstration, and customer-evaluation activities based on the results of the integration and verification program, foundry availability, prospective customer requirements, and broader commercial opportunities. Completion of the first milestone represents an important step in advancing QCIM from architectural development toward commercial evaluation.BTQ and ITRI validation of the QCIM core advances the global post-quantum chip roadmap toward customer test-chip shipments by year-end.Find out more here.—Further articles, reports, and the latest quantum computing news may be found at The Qubit Report.The Network research group at FAU’s Regional Computing Centre Erlangen is participating in the Infosim-coordinated QDD – Quantum Domain Dynamics project. The consortium has secured Pasqal has demonstrated trapping of individual rubidium atoms using laser light delivered and controlled by a photonic integrated circuit, which the company describes as a Week Ending 7 | 8 | 2026. What a blockbuster week for quantum technology: record public-company revenues, commercial rack-mount photonic and room-temperature NV systems shipping, Sign up to receive our newsletter and other reports.We keep your data private and share your data only with third parties that make this service possible. Read our privacy policy for more info.Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.