BTQ Technologies has signed a USD 15 million strategic investment and development agreement with ICTK, Korea’s leading secure element chip manufacturer.
This partnership aims to address the growing cybersecurity threats brought on by the advent of quantum computing, with a particular focus on safeguarding the digital asset and stablecoin markets. It also complements Korea’s broader efforts to accelerate the deployment of quantum-safe technologies across defense, finance, and communications, reinforcing both commercialization speed and strategic self-reliance.
Through the co-development of a quantum-secure secure element chip, known as Quantum Compute in Memory (“QCIM”), BTQ and ICTK will combine BTQ’s post-quantum cryptography (“PQC”) technology and intellectual property with ICTK’s proven SE design and manufacturing capabilities to deliver a commercially deployable, quantum-resistant hardware platform for next-generation financial security.
Under the collaboration, the companies have entered into two key agreements:
- Development Agreement: Joint design, validation, tape-outs, certification, and productization of the QCIM chip.
- Investment Agreement: BTQ’s direct equity investment into ICTK, coupled with ICTK’s in-kind contribution through cost-sharing and preferential deployment of manufacturing capacity, aligning both companies’ commercial interests and accelerating co-development and go-to-market execution.
The partnership will leverage ICTK’s established customer base across Korea’s telecommunications and financial sectors to enable early adoption of PQC-enabled secure chips. The companies also plan to expand joint commercialisation into international markets where demand for quantum-safe semiconductors is rapidly growing across defense, IoT, AI, and financial services.
As a KOSDAQ-listed secure-element leader, ICTK’s commitment provides strong third-party validation of QCIM’s commercial potential. ICTK is aligning its next-generation secure-element roadmap with QCIM, committing significant in-kind resources and preferential manufacturing capacity to bring the platform to market at scale.
The QCIM chip is being designed for high-assurance use cases, including cold and hardware wallets for digital assets, mobile authentication and fintech security, Internet of Things (IoT) endpoints, payment gateways and defense systems. By embedding PQC at the silicon layer, QCIM aims to deliver end-to-end quantum-secure identity, signing, attestation, and secure storage for next-generation financial and commercial networks. This joint development represents a practical and immediate response to the hacking risks that are expected to surge with the emergence of quantum computing, providing the digital asset and stablecoin industries with a tangible path to future-proof their infrastructures. It also supports national goals to secure defense-grade communications and infrastructure under Korea’s strategic technology roadmap.
QCIM will incorporate BTQ’s CASH cryptographic acceleration as its engine for both classical and post-quantum primitives, providing partners with a practical path to quantum-safe upgrades on the same silicon while maintaining existing customer workflows unchanged. Recent testing shows up to five times faster AES throughput compared to leading secure hardware, achieving around one million digital signatures per second for real-time authentication, with energy consumption under one microjoule per cryptographic operation, and a compact footprint suitable for digital asset wallets, mobile authentication, Internet of Things devices, payments and defense systems.
“This agreement puts quantum-safe security at the center of the global silicon ecosystem,” said Olivier Roussy Newton, CEO of BTQ. “By combining BTQ’s QCIM platform, powered by our CASH acceleration, with ICTK’s secure-element expertise, we give hardware makers a clear path to embed post-quantum protection at scale. Just as important, ICTK’s decision as a KOSDAQ-listed manufacturer to anchor its next-generation platform on QCIM and commit material resources is powerful external validation. The result is silicon that meets performance, energy, and certification requirements, remains upgradeable as standards advance, and drops into defense, critical infrastructure, IoT devices, payments, mobile authentication, AI, and digital assets without changing how people use them.”
Jungwon Lee, CEO of ICTK said: “ICTK has a long track record of secure element innovation across telecommunications and financial services. By teaming with BTQ, we will integrate post-quantum security natively into our next-gen SE platform, enabling customers to adopt quantum-safe cryptography with the performance, certification, and supply-chain scale they expect from ICTK.”
