FOCAL

Quantum computers will one day be able to break the encryption that secure communication relies on today. The answer is post-quantum cryptography (PQC). So far, though, it works mostly under controlled conditions and hardly in the networked edge devices that energy, transport, manufacturing and space depend on.

FOCAL (Functional cOmposition of post quantum Cryptosystems At Large) develops a unified framework for using PQC end to end in such environments. It looks at devices, software, network and communication together:

• Crypto-agility through reconfigurable hardware
• Hardware-accelerated PQC for key generation, encapsulation and storage
• Lightweight, distributed trusted execution environments (TEEs) on edge devices
• Network control through software-defined networking, and interoperability through machine learning

The framework is validated in pilots from automotive, fintech, data centres, space, medical technology and next-generation networks.

Our contribution

The University of Lübeck takes part with the Institute of Computer Engineering (ITI) and the Institute for IT Security and leads the work package on PQC-enabled applications: efficient accelerators, quantum-resilient TEEs, machine learning for resource optimisation, PQC benchmarks and over-the-air updates for embedded devices. The ITI brings in the architecture of hardware and software systems and their prototypical implementation and evaluation, and helps define the validation scenarios of all demonstrators.

Partners and funding

15 partners coordinated by the University of Cyprus (KIOS Center of Excellence), among them CERTH, imec, KPMG, NVIDIA (Mellanox), NXP Semiconductors, SEMI Europe, Valeo and CSEM. More on the project website.

Funded by the European Union under Horizon Europe (Cluster 3, cybersecurity), through the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre (ECCC), grant agreement No 101225859.