From online transactions to shopping, the internet powers them all today, and this digitalisation is expected to deepen in the near future with the convergence of multiple technologies, including 5G wireless, artificial intelligence, robotics, connected vehicles, and blockchain.
“In this hyperconnected digital world, trust will be critical,” observes Sunil Gupta, co-founder of QNu Labs.
The company he set up in 2016 — together with Mark Mathias, Anil Prabhakar and Srinivasa Rao Aluri — offers quantum cybersecurity solutions using ‘qubits’.
Unlike the classic computing bits, which represent either a zero or one, qubits can exist in both states simultaneously or even in a superposition of values, based on the principles of quantum physics.
QNu Labs offers commercially ready quantum cybersecurity products with data encryption to protect against cyber-attacks from quantum computers.
The company has secured seven patents. Its products include a random number generator, called Tropos, to create encryption keys; a flagship quantum key distribution system (Armos); a post-quantum cryptography stack (Hodos); and a quantum secure key vault (Tholos).
These products have cybersecurity applications across sectors like finance, healthcare, data centres, defence, and critical infrastructure.
“Not just a million-dollar problem, we are trying to solve a trillion-dollar problem that spans banking, healthcare, and the financial market,” says Gupta.
Cloud service
While Tropos and Armos are hardware products, Hodos and Tholos are software products. QNu Labs also offers cloud-based services to help clients reduce their capex spend on systems upgrade and maintenance.
“We employ a multi-pronged approach, selling technology directly to enterprises and integrating it with hardware, platforms, and applications from established companies and global players,” Gupta says.
The company has six ongoing pilots with various organisations including national government organisation, government identification body, OEM partners, global tech company and others.
The company, which clocked ₹24 crore ($2.9 million) revenue last year, targets ₹100 crore this fiscal year and ₹200 crore by fiscal year 2026.
‘Complex and new’
On challenges facing the business, Gupta says the complexity of the technology and its newness in India poses a hurdle to its wider adoption.
“Getting the right users and conducting trials for successful integration and deployment of the products is also a major issue,” he adds.
The company is currently working on applications that can fetch it a larger user base across industries.