SEALSQ and Kaynes advance India’s PQC chip hub

SEALSQ is making significant strides in the emerging post-quantum security market by unveiling plans for a semiconductor personalization center in India. The company recently announced its involvement in the inauguration of Kaynes Semicon’s new OSAT facility in Sanand, Gujarat, where the initial phase of a collaborative SEALSQ – Kaynes Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) Personalization Center will be established.

The grand opening of the facility was graced by the presence of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and was broadcast nationwide, underscoring the strategic importance of the country’s burgeoning semiconductor industry. This project serves as a testament to the increasing intertwining of hardware security and local manufacturing in the global chip supply chain landscape.

A Leap Towards Sovereign Semiconductor Security

The forthcoming PQC Personalization Center is set to operate within Kaynes Semicon’s outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) plant in Sanand. The primary objective of this facility, as outlined by the companies involved, is to facilitate the complete lifecycle of secure chips — from assembly and testing to cryptographic provisioning — within the borders of India.

The primary aim is to eliminate the need to send uninitialized chips overseas for security provisioning, a practice that can potentially expose vulnerabilities in the supply chain. Once operational, devices based on SEALSQ’s QS7001 security microcontroller are anticipated to be assembled, tested, and cryptographically personalized locally before being introduced to various markets.

These devices are primarily intended for deployment in IoT systems, digital identity infrastructure, industrial networks, and government applications in India, as well as in markets across South and Southeast Asia.

This initiative mirrors a broader trend observed among governments worldwide as they strive to assert sovereign control over trusted hardware supply chains in response to escalating cybersecurity threats.

Preparing Hardware for the Post-Quantum Era

One of the key driving forces behind this project is the imminent impact of quantum computing on contemporary cryptography. Traditional public-key systems like RSA and elliptic curve cryptography could eventually be compromised by quantum algorithms such as Shor’s algorithm.

Security agencies and standards organizations have already commenced preparations for this impending shift. In 2024, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) finalized the initial set of post-quantum cryptography standards, which include ML-KEM, ML-DSA, and SLH-DSA.

The QS7001 microcontroller developed by SEALSQ is specifically engineered to directly implement these algorithms in hardware. This chip serves as a hardware root of trust, blending post-quantum cryptography with conventional methods like AES-256, RSA-4096, and ECC P-384 to support hybrid security deployments.

Furthermore, it integrates a true random number generator, secure key storage, a cryptographic coprocessor for lattice-based algorithms, and safeguards against tampering and side-channel attacks.

Industrial-Scale Personalization

Chip personalization is a critical stage where an otherwise generic silicon device is endowed with a unique identity. At the Sanand facility, each chip will be assigned a device identifier, internally generate its own asymmetric key pair, and receive an X.509 certificate issued by a trusted authority.

The center will rely on FIPS 140-3 Level 3 certified hardware security modules for key generation and certificate signing. The operations will encompass secure key ceremonies and meticulous chain-of-custody logging to meet compliance standards.

The project will be overseen by SEALKAYNESQ Ltd, a joint venture established by SEALSQ and Kaynes Semicon following a letter of intent signed earlier this year.

Carlos Moreira, Founder & CEO of SEALSQ Corp, expressed, “Our collaboration with Kaynes and the launch of this PQC Personalization Center mark a pivotal milestone in empowering India to safeguard its digital future. By embedding post-quantum security directly into semiconductor infrastructure, and doing so on Indian soil, under Indian governance, we are contributing to the development of a resilient, sovereign, and future-proof technology ecosystem that can serve as a blueprint for the region.”