Thanks for joining us at Maxim Group's virtual TMT Conference of 2025. We have a lot to talk about today. Certainly, on this track, we're covering a lot of ground from quantum to drones, and I think, you know, a lot in between. I appreciate your attention and your interest in the names that we're bringing to light today. We're kicking it off with WISeKey International, with its Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Carlos Moreira. Carlos, welcome back to this event. You know, it's great to have you here. Maybe for those who are unfamiliar with the story and with your background, maybe give a little bit about, you know, what WISeKey is and how you got here.
Yeah, thank you, Matt. Pleasure to be together again on this far side. WISeKey is a Swiss company based in Geneva. It is a company that was founded—I founded it in 1999. A long journey on basically cybersecurity focus, you know, everything related to encryption, PKI, public infrastructure, and the possibility of securing people's information in a more identity-centric environment where the user controls their data, controls their identity, controls their consent. A few years ago, this was not really mainstream. I do not think people realized at that moment the consequences of having technology, of not having technology that will protect individuals. This is becoming more mainstream now. This is one of the reasons, obviously, WISeKey is growing and the diversification is happening because we have now verticals that we did not have before as we were mainly a PKI company. That was the beginning.
My background, I was the Chief Security Officer in Geneva of the United Nations, so 16 years experience after my university in securing critical infrastructure. This is a very big endeavor, as you can imagine. The United Nations was, yeah, and it still is one of the number one targets for anyone that wants to hack. We work a lot on the genesis of the World Wide Web that was created in Geneva at Tim Berners-Lee. We share the same laboratory. We were in the first node ever created on the web was created here in Geneva, and I was part of that development. I have a very long journey on cybersecurity and everything related to this technology.
Thank you. What a perspective I think you have on the evolution of the internet and how that evolved. You know, I do not think we could really talk about cybersecurity in 2025 without talking about quantum and, you know, why quantum is suddenly becoming a hot topic this year. Maybe can you start with just the quantum computing side and take us through what has changed in the last year and why people are paying more attention to it? Then we will delve into the countermeasure part that I think you will have a lot to say about.
Absolutely. I mean, we actually predicted that quantum will become very big in 2024 and 2025 as we are spinning off one of our technologies, which is a semiconductor technology that WISeKey had inside the group until May 2023 when we spin it off and list it on the NASDAQ. The reason we did that actually was exactly for what happened a few months later that we knew that sooner or later someone will come with quantum capabilities. This will obviously be the big companies like Google coming in November last year with Willow and subsequently Microsoft and subsequently Amazon. They started to develop quantum cores. Those are the building blocks for developing a quantum computer. Still, we are not yet on the quantum day, as everybody says, but we are very close.
I think what the market has clarified, and this is plenty of evidence now, that quantum will not be a 30-year time issue as was explained by some CEOs in Silicon Valley, but will actually be three to five years. What happened is that companies that they had like WISeKey that they have a very long track record on securing legacy systems like public infrastructure, like identity management, they started to say, "Okay, what about if we replace the algorithm? Because one of the consequences of quantum computers will break immediately RSA, will break triple DES, will basically break all the current ciphers and encryption ciphers that they are powering the global economy." I mean, this is banks, this is insurance companies, this is airlines, this is critical infrastructure, smart cities, smart grids. All of that is now based on RSA.
Once these quantum computers become operational, they will immediately not only have unlimited computational power that will displace supercomputers, but that power will be used if it's a nefarious user of the technology to create a lot of harm. What happens is then companies like WISeKey and SEALSQ, which is an affiliate company of WISeKey, started to get huge attention because once you have such an imminent threat, you have to organize the defense, right? The defense is what we call post-quantum technology, which is putting at the silicon level. You are injecting at the chip level the same algorithm that will be used on the tack level. When a quantum computer finds that algorithm in a microchip, in a semiconductor, it won't be able to break because the algorithm is actually the same that is originated in the quantum machine.
That obviously mitigates the risk, reduces the risk. WISeKey is also upgrading all their existing, you know, we have one of the dominant quantum root keys now. We started by, as you know, we were one of the pioneers in root keys that they are private keys that they are used to issue all sorts of keys on the internet. Companies like RSA, like Entrust, like Verisign, like Digicert, all these companies are in the same category that they have a PKI root key. This PKI root key can also be compromised if you have a quantum attack, right? What WISeKey did during this year has been an intense work is upgrading that quantum, that PKI root key into a quantum root key.
By the way, there is information in the market now that maybe already next year, companies like Microsoft, Google, and others will put the possibility, will list those quantum root keys in their directories. Their browsers and their OS will be able to embed that quantum root key into their operating system. That will be a major breakthrough because then we'll become obviously a first line of defense and everybody will have by just downloading the next version of the browser. This has been the major development. Obviously, the market reacted very well to SEALSQ by then last year when Willow came, the company went to $1 billion.
We raised a lot of money on SEALSQ that is now sitting on a huge cash position that allows the company basically to develop fully what we call the quantum roadmap, which includes also the investment in some quantum technologies acquisitions like it is the case of the acquisition just we made a few weeks ago of a company with the name IC'ALPS, which is a major French developer of ASIC. ASIC are designing of chips. So we design now chips for the automobile industry, for the medical industry. This is like haute couture, you know, it's like high fashion of chips that they are designed to solve one specific computational issue. And obviously with the post-quantum capability, we are now able to offer what we call a quantum ASIC process.
WISeKey is obviously growing at the same time because those verticals are maturing and they are basically certifying, confirming the reason why we wanted to upgrade the legacy system in WISeKey into the quantum world.
Thank you. I guess from your perspective, I think you said we're in the three to five years before we see pretty widespread or potential use of quantum as opposed to, you know, it's not a 10 or 15-year cycle. We're much closer than what a lot of people think. What does that mean for products or services that rely on, you know, some kind of secure chip or TPM? Does somebody designing a product today need to incorporate a quantum-capable chip as they develop new products today? Is it sort of like a binary thing where, you know, if you have a product in the market three to five years from now, you're going to want to be future-proofed? Are you seeing like movement from, you know, product designers in that direction?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for the time being, actually, and this is one of the reasons why SEALSQ and WISeKey, but in particular now SEALSQ is growing so fast, is because we were one of the first companies really looking into that. The others are Infineon, STMicroelectronics, I mean, very large players that for them will be actually difficult to move into the post-quantum roadmap because they are massive companies. When you're in a very large environment like that, it's very hard to refocus your staff and your people to have a post-quantum strategy, right? This is why the TPM market is still a very emerging market. There are not many players. We are one of the pioneers of it. Infineon is another one. We have another one in Taiwan. These companies are now being approached intensively by the market because everybody's concerned, right?
To develop your own TPM strategy at the industrial level, if you're a car manufacturer or if you are an IoT device provider or you're a camera or you're a car company, all these conglomerates need to be quantum-ready by not in three years now, right? Because actually there are consequences to that. For instance, insurance companies are now saying, "We don't want to have the liability risk of securing you and insuring you if you are not post-quantum-ready," right? Because that could happen before even three years. I mean, there are some comments that China has already a quantum computer. We don't know. We know that the process on the qubits process is accelerating, right? Now we have enough qubits to break the first layer of RSA. Obviously, it's a long way before you can really break RSA, but that means that qubits are getting accumulated.
Once you reach the 200 qubits, you can break RSA, right? There is an unknown factor in the market. This is why I think investors are paying a lot of attention to quantum because they're saying, "This is not like AI or like blockchain, this type of technology." I mean, this is the foundational structure on the internet are going to change, right? This is the company like CISCO's of the world, and they are providing internet infrastructure like telcos that they provide connectivity. All these organizations will need to be post-quantum-ready in order to sustain whatever they're doing on the top of it. The market is that the addressable market of TPM is still small. We are talking about $1 billion this year addressable market, but this is going to be exponentially growing as we move forward and as legislation also is backing this.
You know, as you know, NIST and IST has published already the algorithm. We are actually part of that group. We are between the 10 companies that they are following very closely with them. NIST very soon will provide a certification. Once the certification is done, obviously that becomes a standard, right? The question will be, how can you help the industry to move from pre-post quantum to post-post quantum, right? What will be the effort? The good news, this is not a complex thing. I mean, if you are having a quantum legacy chip powering your video camera connecting into your house, to upgrade that to a post-quantum chip is actually frictionless. It's not a big thing, obviously. The price is similar. Everything is similar. The only thing, you obviously increase the performance.
It's basically as I keep saying to people that they still remember when cars didn't have airbags. Obviously now nobody could even think a car without an airbag. In three years' time, nobody will even think an IoT device or a connector without a post-quantum chip powering that device.
Just to put a finer point on the NIST comment. You know, I think investors have heard a lot from companies bringing proprietary encryption that's supposed to be stronger over the last five, ten years. What you're implementing is really standards-driven, right? This is sort of, you know, NIST is, you know, functionally a government, you know, standard-setting body. You're implementing really wide standards that are designed to address the quantum threat.
Yeah, we really believe that this is the way because we are RIS5, which is also the architecture of PCs and mobile phones. You do not want to change the entire, you know, world, and it will be very difficult, right? What we are doing is upgrading existing standards that they are now becoming obsolete into the newer standard. That is why the guidance of NIST is so important. There is an equivalent of NIST in Europe as well, which are also providing guidance. At the end of the day, insurance company and anyone will test you if you are in compliance. It will become like an ISO standard or a traditional standard that certifies technology, right?
Now what is very interesting that we are already starting to see is what else can you do with a post-quantum chip, you know, because not only you can secure something, but that object becomes very smart. That object can benefit also from the computational capability of quantum to accelerate AI. You can embed AI at the object level. You can actually integrate AI at the silicon level. Put AI on the chip so the chip learns from the behavior of the object. You can connect those objects with satellites. As you know, WISeKey launched already 22 satellites. We are launching one new satellite next in a few weeks from California with SpaceX, which is going to be an ultra-secure satellite with post-quantum capability already being able to exchange tokens from space.
Those are the first ever post-quantum token, which is imagine yourself being able to pay a device with a device machine-to-machine through the satellite connectivity. This is opening many new areas that before did not connect because it was impossible, too expensive, or they were in a totally different architecture. Now this is bringing the fact that all these devices need to be post-quantum compliant. We can also influence the programming of the device and what is put inside the device, right? What is going to accelerate is what we call the machine-to-machine economy, right? Which is going to be massive.
Even banks are now calling us because they are saying, "Hey, we want to be the bank account of the object." You know, we are having 8 billion people on earth is a limitation of bank accounts that you can have, but having a bank account of an object, which is post-quantum ready and secure and can collect the transactions between the device with the satellite and between themselves, is a huge market because we are talking about trillions of devices, right? This is the direction of the company and the group of companies. As you know, WISeKey has also a WISAT, which is another, actually WISAT is in the same process now that we did with SEALSQ, spinning off, creating a major space-related technology company that can finance the constellations.
Our target is to have 100 satellite constellations as soon as possible because our clients, they need that level of, you know, precision in terms of how many minutes you need to detect an object anywhere in the latency issue is obviously solved by the number of satellites you put in orbit. We are in the process of activating that process as well. The fact that we made such a huge success in SEALSQ is giving WISeKey the credibility that those verticalizations make sense because I remember a time where people were telling me, "Oh, but you do too many things." I would say, "No, I'm not doing too many things. I do the things that I know in the future they will create synergies between themselves and will power each other." This is where we are now.
We are in that acceleration process, exponentiality process on where those things are becoming. Basically, we call this the year of convergence. The year of convergence is that once you upgrade your assets to post-quantum secure assets, you start to play on how they can converge themselves, right? That is a very powerful combination. AI talking to quantum, quantum being accessible from space, blockchain technology being secure with post-quantum chip. Actually, it is a very big concern. Another major concern now the industry has is if a quantum computer arrives, it breaks all the current cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin, all those currencies are using traditional encryption, cryptographic root keys, right? If you have a quantum computer and that quantum computer is in the hands of, you know, a rogue organization, it could basically break those, imagine the consequences of breaking Bitcoin, right?
That's why actually it's very interesting because now companies are investing in post-quantum technology because they want to be sure that we are ready by the time this will become a real danger.
You know, it sounds like the threat is, you know, pretty pervasive. I guess, can you touch a little bit more on the SEAL Coin, where we are in the process of, you know, what milestones should investors look for? You know, I think you mentioned it's for machine-to-machine or object-to-object transaction. Maybe you'll talk a little bit more about that.
Yeah, so SEAL, we actually, WISeKey has now three token assets. One is SEAL Coin. We also invested in a token with the name WEEKN, WEEKN as the famous WEEKN. This is a token we actually invested two weeks ago. Since we invested, the token has gone up 1,300%. This is a token that provides KYC, Know Your Customer and Know Your Object on a blockchain. They started with banks. Actually, they are the KYC provider on the blockchain to banks, bank accounts. If you open a bank account in one bank and you do not want to repeat that operation endlessly, you will have a KYC process on the blockchain. You go to the blockchain and you just basically certify your credentials. You do not have to go again through a KYC process.
They apply the same technology with us for objects. What we call KYO, Know Your Object, which is an object before talking to another object. Before establishing a trust relation with another object, it will go to the blockchain. In the blockchain, you will have a record in a ledger that basically says, "This object is trusted." You know, if you are connecting your alarm system with your Wi-Fi or if you are connecting your car with an EV plug, before you do that, you want to be sure that the other object, it is not going to transfer you malware. This is what we do with this token with the name WEEKN. I mean, it is amazing, the technology started in Switzerland, but it is becoming mainstream now.
We also announced that we are in the process of acquiring 30% of the company. The transaction will be closed very soon. Plus, we acquire a majority on the token itself. This is the certification layer. Then you have the payment layer. This is what SEAL Coin does. SEAL Coin goes inside a wallet, which is physically into the chip. The microchip has a wallet, a secure wallet, post-quantum ready on where you can transfer. I mean, you can buy SEAL Coin from an exchange. They will be available by the summer. We just got the regulatory bodies to allow us to do that because you have to go through the regulatory process. It took a while. This is a very lengthy process. Now we are done. SEAL Coin is going to be ready by the summer, Swiss summer.
What is going to happen there is that let's say that you are a, I don't know, Daimler or BMW or any big industrial player. You say, "I want to put a chip on my object, but I also want to put in the wallet credits I'm going to buy from the exchange SEAL Coin so I can inject into the wallet." I let my object be able to pay with another object. This is no commission in the middle. It is very intuitive. Imagine you are parking with your car and your parking meter is stuck into the chip in your car and transfer $1 or $2 in SEAL Coin just to pay the parking meter. It could be tolls in the highways. It could be interconnections between objects between themselves. It could be one drone.
Actually, we have a pod going on, one drone buying data from another drone because they need that data to take some decisions. This is becoming the way to interrelate all this technology. I don't know if you have followed what has happened in just yesterday, before yesterday with the Russian drone attack that was sent by a container. This is changing totally. I mean, we knew sooner or later something like that would happen, you know, because when you put that level of security and control at the drone, the drone doesn't need any more human intervention. The drones, actually the truck itself is the hub where those drones are dispatched anywhere from anywhere, right? Obviously, there must be some kind of satellite connection to be able to do that because you have to triangulate the signal. This is where we are entering, right?
You're going to start to see this kind of autonomous intelligent object transactions where humans, once you program them, you have no further intervention. The thing will automatically activate and has huge consequences, right? I mean, you can use obviously for nefarious activities. Imagine the consequences of that happening in a city, right? We need to put that level of security at the device level. We need to be able to control those devices in a way that humans don't leave the control to the device itself. This is the tokenization will help to do that because you are in constant relation with the object. The object before transferring to another object has to certify themselves in the blockchain and only trust, only transact with the object you're going to be able to trust.
Obviously, the certification and the trust of that object should not be led to the technology. There should be human intervention there, right? In order to mitigate the potential risk of this fourth industrial revolution.
Carlos, we have one minute remaining. So any final remarks you want to share for investors?
No, just to, you know, there have been obviously WISeKey has needed the time needed to move from legacy to post-quantum. We are moving the entire group. It's a big effort because we moved first SEALSQ as the chip. Now we are moving the software part with WISeKey. We are moving the satellite part with WISeSat. And we are moving the tokenization part with SEAL Coin. That is creating a very interesting platform, internet platform that I'm sure it will create a lot of value in the future, you know, because the entire world needs this technology. We, as you know, we are very conscious about privacy. We are in Switzerland. Microsoft just invested $400 million in Switzerland yesterday because it's a trusted country which knows how to handle this type of platforms in a neutral way. I think it's a company for the future.
Thanks again for joining us today. Fascinating story and look forward to seeing it evolve with quantum.
Thank you Matt for all your interviews.