BTQ Technologies and ITRI Complete Key Milestone in Global QCIM Chip Roadmap Led by BTQ and ICTK

Validation demonstrates QCIM core IP can accelerate FIPS 203, 204 and 205 under demanding operating conditions, advancing next-generation hardware for military, industrial, automotive, IoT, Physical AI and connected infrastructure

BTQ Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ: BTQ) ("BTQ" or the "Company") (CBOE CA: BTQ), a global technology company building the trust infrastructure for the quantum era, is pleased to announce the successful completion of the first milestone of its multi-year collaboration with the Industrial Technology Research Institute ("ITRI") to validate BTQ's Quantum Compute-in-Memory ("QCIM") architecture for post-quantum cryptography.

The collaboration with ITRI forms part of the global QCIM chip roadmap led by BTQ and ICTK Co., Ltd. (KOSDAQ: 456010) ("ICTK"). The program brings together BTQ's cryptographic architecture, ICTK's secure semiconductor and physical unclonable function capabilities, and ITRI's advanced semiconductor design, integration and validation expertise.

Completion of the first milestone demonstrated the QCIM architecture's ability to accurately and efficiently accelerate cryptographic operations across demanding operating conditions evaluated during the program. The results support the continued development of next-generation QCIM technology designed for future integration across military, industrial, automotive, Internet of Things, Physical AI and other connected devices, systems and infrastructure.

The QCIM core IP demonstrated its crypto-agility by executing cryptographic operations associated with FIPS 203, FIPS 204 and FIPS 205, the post-quantum cryptography standards established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology. The architecture is also being developed to support additional post-quantum cryptographic algorithms as standards, customer requirements and security environments evolve.

Milestone Highlights

• Completed the first technical milestone of BTQ and ITRI's multi-year QCIM collaboration
• Validated the QCIM core within a TSMC (NYSE: TSM) 28-nanometre design environment
• Demonstrated acceleration of cryptographic operations associated with FIPS 203, 204 and 205
• Confirmed the functional correctness and feasibility of the QCIM architecture
• Demonstrated performance advantages and crypto-agility across multiple post-quantum algorithms
• Advanced the program into its next phase of module-level integration, verification and validation

"This milestone is an important technical and commercial step in the global QCIM roadmap being led by BTQ and ICTK," said Olivier Roussy Newton, CEO and Chairman of BTQ Technologies. "The results demonstrate that the QCIM architecture can accurately and efficiently accelerate multiple NIST-standardized post-quantum cryptographic algorithms under demanding conditions while maintaining the flexibility required to respond to evolving security standards. As post-quantum security moves from standardization toward implementation, organizations will require hardware that can deliver stronger cryptographic protection without creating unacceptable performance, power or deployment constraints," continued Roussy Newton. "The work completed with ITRI provides a stronger foundation for integrating QCIM into the devices and infrastructure supporting military, industrial, automotive, IoT and Physical AI systems."

QCIM is BTQ's soft IP cryptographic accelerator architecture designed to support both classical and post-quantum cryptographic functions in a compact, low-power block. By executing cryptographic operations inside the memory subsystem, QCIM is designed to reduce latency, power consumption, and data movement while supporting crypto-agile security across a range of chip architectures and connected devices.

The next-generation QCIM quantum-security chip is being developed for use across IoT, AI devices, industrial systems, secure elements, edge devices, and other connected infrastructure where device authentication, security performance, and long-term cryptographic resilience are becoming increasingly important.

The program will now advance into its next phase, focused on module-level integration, verification and validation. This phase is intended to further evaluate how the QCIM core can be incorporated into broader system architectures while preserving functional correctness, interoperability and performance.

For BTQ, completion of the first milestone represents an important step in advancing QCIM from architectural development toward commercial evaluation. Independent validation of the core design reduces technical risk and provides a stronger foundation for system-level integration, prospective customer demonstrations and discussions with semiconductor, infrastructure and device partners. The next phase is intended to generate the additional verification and integration data required to assess product configurations, customer-specific applications and the appropriate pathway toward fabrication and deployment. While further development remains, the milestone strengthens BTQ's ability to move QCIM commercialization efforts forward based on demonstrated technical performance rather than design assumptions.

"This milestone demonstrates meaningful progress in validating compute-in-memory architectures for post-quantum cryptography," said Dr. Chih-Cheng Lu, Manager of ITRI's Electronic and Optoelectronic System Research Laboratories. "The next phase will build on these results through module-level integration and verification, helping advance the architecture toward broader system implementation."

BTQ intends to evaluate subsequent fabrication, demonstration and customer-evaluation activities based on the results of the integration and verification program, foundry availability, prospective customer requirements and broader commercial opportunities.

Backed by ICTK's secure chip capabilities and ITRI's validation results, BTQ expects to ship test chips to key customers and strategic partners by year-end for performance and functional validation.