seQUcom 2025

“The Time to act is now!” – First User Con­fe­rence suc­cessful:

Under the mot­to “Secu­ring Enter­pri­se Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons,” around 70 par­ti­ci­pan­ts from indus­try, poli­tics, and rese­arch – inclu­ding Euro­pe’s lea­ding experts in quan­tum-secu­re encryp­ti­on – gathe­red on 16 and 17 Octo­ber 2025, at the seQUcom user con­fe­rence in the Frank­furt Uni­on Hall to dis­cuss the thre­at posed by Quan­tum and AI Tech­no­lo­gies, regu­la­to­ry deve­lo­p­ments, and con­cre­te solu­ti­ons such as Post-Quan­tum Cryp­to­gra­phy (PQC) and Quan­tum Key Dis­tri­bu­ti­on (QKD). The focus was on the ques­ti­on of what will hap­pen when Quan­tum Com­pu­ters crack today’s com­mon encryp­ti­on algo­rith­ms, and how com­pa­nies can make their com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons quan­tum-secu­re today. The event was orga­ni­zed by KEE­Quant GmbH, the Phy­si­ka­lisch-Tech­ni­sche Bun­des­an­stalt (PTB), the Ver­band der Elek­tro­tech­nik Elek­tro­nik Infor­ma­ti­ons­tech­nik (VDE), the Deut­sche Indus­trie­ver­bund für Quan­ten­si­cher­heit (DIVQ­Sec), the manage­ment and tech­no­lo­gy con­sul­tancy Bea­ring­Point, and Quan­tum Optics Jena GmbH. Repre­sen­ta­ti­ves from the umbrel­la pro­ject for Quan­tum Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on in Ger­ma­ny (SQuaD) were also invol­ved in the orga­niza­ti­on.

The two-day event was divi­ded into two seg­ments. On the first day, the Exe­cu­ti­ve Track fea­tured pre­sen­ta­ti­ons by, among others, Dr. Felix Wis­sel (Deut­sche Tele­kom Geschäfts­kun­den GmbH), Chris­toph Graeb­nitz (Fraun­ho­fer-Insti­tut für Ange­wand­te und Inte­grier­te Sicher­heit (AISEC)), and Dr. Hei­ke Riel (IBM), who impres­si­ve­ly demons­tra­ted that the so-cal­led Q‑Day – the day when Quan­tum Com­pu­ters can break clas­si­cal encryp­ti­on algo­rith­ms – is clo­ser than many think. Exci­ting pre­sen­ta­ti­ons and lively dis­cus­sions fol­lo­wing con­tri­bu­ti­ons from Dr. Ulrich Seyf­arth (Bea­ring­Point), Dani­el Groß (Bun­des­agen­tur für Arbeit), and Tho­mas Kraus (Deut­sche Bun­des­bank) on topics such PQC, QKD, and the role of AI made one thing clear: action is nee­ded now. Dr. Hel­mut Grie­ßer (ADVA Net­work Secu­ri­ty) and Dr. Kevin Fürch­sel (Quan­tum Optics Jena GmbH) then out­lined two dif­fe­rent approa­ches for how com­pa­nies can effec­tively address the thre­at posed by Quan­tum Com­pu­ters. The first day con­cluded with a panel dis­cus­sion on the steps neces­sa­ry to prepa­re for Q‑Day. Tho­mas Lebeth (daco­so GmbH) sub­se­quent­ly picked up the topic and demons­tra­ted what pos­si­bi­li­ties quan­tum-secu­re net­work encryp­ti­on alre­a­dy offers and what mea­su­res com­pa­nies can take today to prepa­re for the future.

On the second day, the Tech­ni­cal Track focu­sed on prac­ti­cal imple­men­ta­ti­on – that is, how the migra­ti­on to PQC or QKD can be suc­cessful­ly achie­ved in prac­ti­ce. Use cases and con­tri­bu­ti­ons, inclu­ding tho­se rela­ted to stan­dar­diza­ti­on, were cen­tral topics. In two show­ca­se pre­sen­ta­ti­ons, Robin Boehn (Deut­sche Tele­kom Tech­nik GmbH) as well as Dr. Maja Kier­dorf and Mar­tin Zauch­ner (BWI GmbH) pre­sen­ted cur­rent solu­ti­ons. In addi­ti­on, short pit­ches by the indus­try exhi­bi­tors Quan­tum Optics Jena GmbH, KEE­Quant GmbH, Bea­ring­Point, and QuKom­mIn pro­vi­ded insights into ongo­ing deve­lo­p­ments. Fol­lo­wing this, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Chris­tof Paar (Max-Planck-Insti­tut für Sicher­heit und Pri­vat­sphä­re) del­ved deeper into PQC and stan­dar­diza­ti­on topics, befo­re Nico­las Per­lot (Fraun­ho­fer-Insti­tut für Nach­rich­ten­tech­nik, Hein­rich-Hertz-Insti­tut (HHI)) pre­sen­ted data trans­mis­si­on within the frame­work of the QuN­ET initia­ti­ve. Dr. Dani­el Min­der (evo­lu­ti­onQ GmbH) addres­sed aspects of hybri­diza­ti­on, cryp­to-agi­li­ty, and sym­me­tric key infra­struc­tu­re, after which Mathi­as Kaschel (IMS Chips) con­cluded by pre­sen­ting use cases of inte­gra­ted pho­to­nics for Quan­tum Appli­ca­ti­ons.

After two inten­si­ve days fil­led with stra­te­gic dis­cus­sions and in-depth tech­ni­cal insights, the­re was no doubt about the cen­tral mes­sa­ge of the event: the thre­at posed by Quan­tum Com­pu­ters is real, and the time to react is rapidly run­ning out. Taking action is the only way to main­tain con­trol over sen­si­ti­ve data. For this reason, the fol­lo­wing appli­es: act now – the future of secu­re com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on beg­ins today!

Pho­tos: Impres­si­ons of the seQUcom 2025.

Aut­hor of the pho­tos: © SQuaD & VDE