Pending the imminent announcement of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) standards are on our doorstep. ABI Research, a global technology intelligence firm, expects the PQC market to take off this year and accelerate rapidly over the next five years to hit $530 million by 2028 as Y2Q looms large.

Hardware security modules (HSMs) will be the front line of devices that will serve up PQC algorithms in a commercially palatable format. HSM vendors have been following and often actively participating in the standards development process. All have been offering testing solutions for clients on the different finalist algorithms.

“The HSM market is primed for the official announcement of the PQC standards by NIST, with software upgrades, sandbox testing solutions, and migration consultancy services already commercially available,” explains Michela Menting, Senior Research Director at ABI Research. “Alongside new FIPS 140-3 level certification incoming for next-generation appliances, a new class of HSMs will be hitting the market later this year and in 2025 that provide the latest security certification and quantum-safe algorithms, which will drive demand in the HSM market overall.”

Most organizations are increasingly aware of the necessity for quantum-safe solutions, with large technology firms announcing PQC integration in their products and governments publishing migration recommendations and timelines for the industry. “Regardless of the actual advent of attack-capable quantum computers in the next five years, it is clear that quantum-safe technologies are increasingly becoming a priority for organizations, which are looking at how best to manage that transition,” Menting concludes.

HSM OEMs, including Thales, Entrust, Crypto4A, and Utimaco, are already in the starting blocks with PQC-ready products, ready to deploy quantum-safe solutions and services to an increasingly attentive audience.

These findings are from ABI Research’s Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) Readiness in HSM Markets report. This report is part of the company’s Cybersecurity Applications research service, which includes research, data, and ABI Insights.