Quantum computing is advancing at an unprecedented pace, raising urgent concerns about its impact on today’s encryption systems. At DigiCert’s 2025 World Quantum Readiness Day held on 10 September, company CEO Dr. Amit Sinha warned that the technology will soon trigger a breakthrough moment similar to ChatGPT: “One day you’ll wake up and realize the disruption has already happened. The big tech firms like Google, Microsoft, and AWS are racing for quantum supremacy, and the pace of advancement is staggering.”
DigiCert CEO opened the day by framing the reality of quantum timelines and the need for coordinated readiness: “Moving to quantum is a huge change for organizations, and whenever people and organizations are faced with a big change, they usually go through the five stages of grief: denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance. Today, 24% of organizations are still in denial about the risks of quantum computing. Our goal with the Quantum Readiness Day event is to help them move toward acceptance, because this is the year that shift must happen.”
Bringing together a distinguished panel of experts from industry, government, and academia, the event underscored the urgency of migration as regulators across APAC set accelerating deadlines and guidance for post-quantum cryptography (PQC).
The cost of inaction
Speakers stressed that delaying action will only increase risks and costs. “Every month you delay the transition, the risks compound. The expense of emergency migration under pressure will far outweigh the investment of starting early,” said Lakshmi Hanspal, Chief Trust Officer at DigiCert. Colin Soutar, Deloitte’s Global Quantum Cyber Readiness Lead, agreed: “Organizations that wait will end up paying more, financially, operationally, and reputationally.”
Practical steps for transition
Deepika Chauhan, Chief Product Officer at DigiCert, outlined three practical steps for companies beginning the transition: “First, focus on creating a thorough inventory of your cryptographic assets, but don’t wait for that process to be complete before getting started. Second, assign clear owners to those assets, because ultimately they will be the ones responsible for driving the transition. And third, begin thinking about automation from the outset, as it will be critical to managing the scale and complexity of migration.”
New algorithms, new challenges
Experts also discussed the first standardized PQC algorithm, ML-DSA, approved by NIST last year. William Whyte, Senior Director of Technical Standards at Qualcomm, explained that ML-DSA is not vulnerable to quantum attacks and will become one of the most widely used alternatives to today’s RSA encryption. But Dr. Taher Elgamal, cryptographer and father of SSL, cautioned that organizations should not assume this will be the final solution. “The migration from RSA to ML-DSA will not be the last. Agility is the way forward.”
Experts urge APAC organizations to act as governments accelerate quantum readiness deadlines
As APAC organizations face rapidly accelerating expectations and guidelines around quantum readiness, the event’s timing and focus could not be more critical.
“India’s National Quantum Mission has allocated significant R&D spend and has been encouraging quantum readiness, especially in critical sectors. This momentum is prompting all organizations to begin migration planning now,” added Anant Deshpande, DigiCert Regional
Vice President, India & ASEAN.
DigiCert reaffirmed its commitment to leading this effort by delivering tools, roadmaps, and collaborative frameworks that empower organizations, anchored by its DigiCert® ONE platform. Designed to give organizations the agility to adapt as cryptographic standards evolve, DigiCert ONE supports the latest post-quantum algorithms and helps enterprises prepare and manage the complex transition.