Why Quantum? - The digital revolution

The digital revolution of the 1980s marked the end of industrialization but also Man’s first step into the digital world.  Technology has only exponentially advanced ever since, leaving behind the world of analog by introducing mankind to the convenience and revolution of the Informational Era. The discovery of the transistor in the late 1940s triggered a sequential of events that allowed for the invention of the computer and subsequently the World Wide Web. Although the mass adaptation of the internet started later at the beginning of the 1990s, companies seized the opportunity to decrease operational costs by digitalizing their data, which started the digital reformatting transition and eventually led to the born-digital era. The permanent elimination of the analog records gave birth to the necessity for digital preservation, data custody, and introduced, the now significant, term of “user data”. Companies no longer held their client’s data in physically safeguarded locations and their quest to find a secure means to store and transfer data online propelled encryption technology into the forefront of the digital postmodern privacy world. Our reliance on complex means of digital security only became clearer as the advancement of the computer continued to excel and the user’s awareness of data privacy surged along with it. Critical sectors our modern society, such as but not limited to, logistics, energy, financial systems, and healthcare withhold sensitive and confidential information to run their core business and the solution they provide to ensure the data is safe brings enormous opportunities but also raises the question of what will happen when we reach the climax of data vulnerability once encryption technology is surpassed by computing power. The 21st century has seen the manufacturing industry embrace the digital revolution with the emergence of new technologies such as cloud computing and the Internet of Things. These digital services are now part of our everyday life, they have brought down barriers, enabling industries to grow and advance like never before but also exposed the growing opportunities of cyber threats.

As the computing advancement steadily advance, it is important for encryption to evolve alongside with it, otherwise it will expose the fragility of our current infrastructure and open the door to the frightening idea that our data security protocols can be rendered obsolete. The “Quantum Apocalypse” is a theoretical term that only ten years ago was a distant and elusive computing fantasy, yet today’s promising advancements are opening the door to the devastating consequences this achievement can unleash on the foundation of our infrastructure, hence the importance of XATOXI’s mission to develop a scalable solution to combat the arrival of quantum computing and shield are current infrastructures from the threat that will come with it.