A White House order signed in June set a hard deadline for the federal government to tear out today’s encryption, and a small group of public companies is already selling the replacement and offering the opportunity for investing in PQC.
The order, Executive Order 14412, gives federal agencies until Dec. 31, 2030, to move their most sensitive systems to post-quantum cryptography, and until the end of 2031 to update how those systems verify identity, according to a Cloudflare blog post analyzing the order. Federal contractors face the same 2030 compliance deadline. Post-quantum cryptography refers to a new generation of encryption math designed to withstand attacks from quantum computers, machines that, once powerful enough, could break the codes protecting bank transfers, medical records and state secrets.
No quantum computer capable of that today exists, but intelligence agencies and criminal groups are already believed to be collecting encrypted data now, banking on the ability to unlock it later once quantum hardware catches up, a practice known in the industry as “harvest now, decrypt later.”
That risk, more than any near-term technical breakthrough, is what is pulling forward corporate and government spending. The global post-quantum cryptography market was worth roughly $420 million in 2025 and is projected to grow at a compound annual rate near 46% through 2030, according to industry researcher Roots Analysis cited by market tracker Qubit Chain.
The following list offers a non-exhaustive look at the PQC investment landscape. The companies are likely just a fraction of the public companies that are part of the investing in PQC bet, but it should give the reader a better understanding of the players — and the game — of investing in this rapidly growing area.
Hyperscalers’ Risk and Reward Balance
The biggest technology companies did not wait for Washington and already offer investors a chance for investing in PQC. Because these hyperscalers offer entrenched revenue streams and draw that revenue from multiple business divisions, these companies can also offer investors an ability to manage risk.
International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) helped develop two of the three algorithms the National Institute of Standards and Technology finalized as official U.S. government standards in August 2024, ML-KEM and ML-DSA, according to an IBM news release. IBM is also racing to build the quantum hardware that makes the migration urgent in the first place, with a fault-tolerant machine called Starling targeted for 2029.
Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google and Cloudflare Inc. (NYSE: NET) both moved up their internal migration deadlines to 2029 this spring after new research suggested quantum computers could break widely used encryption sooner than expected, according to trade publication SiliconANGLE.
Cloudflare says more than half of the internet traffic it handles already uses post-quantum key agreement, the process two computers use to agree on a shared secret before encrypting data.
Google has built post-quantum protections into Chrome, Android and Google Cloud, and its Quantum AI unit published research in the spring estimating that fewer than 1,200 error-corrected qubits could theoretically break the encryption securing Bitcoin, a benchmark the industry uses to gauge how close quantum computers are to threatening real-world systems.
Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) are also partway through hyperscale post-quantum rollouts across their cloud platforms.
Quantinuum (NASDAQ: QNT) is a full-stack quantum computing company — and some may disagree with its inclusion in the hyperscalers’ list — but it does offer hyperscaler(ish) size and reliability while offering the upside potential in PQC, as well as other quantum business lines. The company, which is the result of the merger between Cambridge Quantum and Honeywell, has enlisted some of the world’s foremost researchers for its quantum-safe products, including Origin, a quantum random number generator (QRNG) product.
The Pure Plays
Beneath the hyperscalers sit a handful of small, publicly traded companies built specifically around the quantum-safe transition, and they carry the volatility that comes with early-stage technology bets for investing in PQC.
SEALSQ Corp. (NASDAQ: LAES), a Geneva-based chipmaker spun out of WISeKey International in 2023, reported 2025 revenue growth of 66% to about $18.3 million, driven by secure microcontrollers and early sales of its post-quantum chips, according to financial news outlet StocksToTrade. The company points to a commercial sales pipeline topping $200 million for 2026 through 2029, including more than $60 million tied to its QS7001 secure chip and QVault security module. The stock has swung sharply on contract news throughout the year.
Arqit Quantum Inc. (NASDAQ: ARQQ), a London-based encryption software company, remains far earlier in its commercial life. The company reported preliminary first-half 2026 revenue of $620,000 to $630,000, already ahead of its full 2025 total of $530,000, and in April it was selected as a partner by Tomorrow Street, a joint venture between Vodafone and a Luxembourg technology incubator, according to financial data provider Tickeron. Arqit’s market capitalization sits near $234 million, and while analyst firm HC Wainwright has set a price target of $60, the stock has traded closer to $15, underscoring how speculative the pure-play segment remains.
Chipmakers And Network Security Vendors
A second tier of established, profitable companies is capturing post-quantum demand as a feature of existing product lines rather than a standalone bet for investing in PQC.
Lattice Semiconductor Corp. (NASDAQ: LSCC) has shipped what it says is the industry’s first secure programmable chip family compliant with the Pentagon’s CNSA 2.0 encryption standard, and analysts polled by Zacks Investment Research expect the company’s 2026 earnings to rise 40% from 2025, partly on the strength of that hardware.
Microchip Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MCHP) has similarly built post-quantum support into its microcontrollers and programmable chips, according to the same Zacks analysis published by Yahoo Finance.
French defense and technology group Thales sells hardware encryption devices already equipped with the NIST-standardized algorithms, and its security software was built into a Samsung Electronics chip that won a top cybersecurity award at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, according to a Thales news release.
Fortinet Inc. (NASDAQ: FTNT) added post-quantum encryption to its FortiOS software at no extra cost to customers using its firewalls and networking equipment, a move trade publication TMCnet described as one of the more tangible steps taken by a major enterprise security vendor.
For investors, the appeal is a technology shift with a government-mandated calendar attached, a rarity in cybersecurity. The risk is that most of the revenue tied directly to post-quantum products remains small relative to the hype, particularly among the pure plays, and today’s contract pipelines are not guaranteed to convert into booked sales on schedule.
The companies best positioned to benefit immediately are the large, diversified technology firms already embedding the new encryption into products enterprises use every day, while the smaller, dedicated post-quantum names offer higher potential upside alongside considerably higher risk.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. The companies named are examples of firms operating in the post-quantum cryptography market and are not endorsements. Stock prices, financial estimates, and analyst price targets cited are subject to change and were accurate as of the time of reporting. Readers should conduct their own research and consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.
