TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – BTQ, a tech startup headquartered in Liechtenstein and with an office in Taipei, announced plans for a multi-year collaborative effort with Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in early September. The aim of the agreement is to develop new chip technology to secure digital assets in the age of quantum computing.

BTQ is invested in developing post-quantum digital infrastructure to ensure safe and efficient networks. The agreement to work with Taiwan’s ITRI will fast-track the company’s goal of designing digital tools and services to protect IoT devices, 5G wireless networks, and other emerging technology systems from quantum attacks.

This agreement follows an announcement in July by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of standardized algorithms for quantum computing operations. According to a press release, agencies and businesses have been waiting for nearly six years for these standardized algorithms to be adopted in order to facilitate the development of related applications and services.

With the standardized algorithms in place, BTQ and ITRI are both eager to begin developing cutting-edge software and hardware for post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) applications. According to the press release, BTQ has three primary areas of research that it will pursue in collaboration with ITRI.

First, they aim to develop more space-efficient chips that will reduce transaction speeds across blockchain networks. Second, they hope to pioneer a new semiconductor technology based on Compute-in-Memory (CIM) technology, which will provide higher data bandwidth between computing and memory elements in IoT-compatible devices.

Lastly, BTQ is pursuing research on modern communication networks in order to develop and accelerate PQC applications and capabilities for cybersecurity purposes.

BTQ’s Chief Scientific Officer, Cheng Chen-Mou (鄭振牟) commented on the company’s new collaboration with ITRI. “BTQ is looking forward to leveraging ITRI’s cutting-edge CIM semiconductor technologies toward realizing its vision of securing trillion dollars of crypto assets against the emerging threats posed by large quantum computers, as well as enabling eco-friendly and sustainable blockchain computation to attain true decentralization and democratization,” said Cheng.

For more information on BTQ and their work with ITRI, more information is available on their official website.

BTQ officials meet with ITRI representatives at BTQ's headquarters in Hsinchu. (BTQ photo)