Preparing for the Quantum Era: Why business leaders must act now
Quantum computing is rapidly moving from theory to reality, threatening to break the cryptographic foundations that secure today’s digital world. This white paper series, a joint effort by leading Belgian cybersecurity and quantum experts, explains why post-quantum cryptography (PQC) is a strategic imperative for every organisation now!
Quantum computers will eventually break widely used encryption, putting confidential data, transactions, and digital trust at risk. The “harvest now, decrypt later” threat means adversaries may already be collecting encrypted data to exploit in the future. Migration to PQC is complex and will take years. Early action is essential to protect long-lived and sensitive data.
Global standards are emerging, but organisations must start assessing risks, planning migrations, and engaging vendors today. The EU’s roadmap sets clear milestones: national strategies by 2026, critical infrastructure protected by 2030, and broad adoption by 2035. Sector-specific use cases in telecom, banking, healthcare, and retail illustrate the urgent need for quantum-safe solutions.
Crypto-agility – being able to adapt cryptography quickly – will be a key competitive advantage and regulatory expectation. Leadership is crucial: quantum resilience is not just a technical challenge, but a business and reputational one. Early movers will build trust with customers, partners, and regulators, and position themselves as digital leaders. The time to act is now: waiting increases risk, cost, and complexity.
This white paper series is the result of a collaborative effort, bringing together expertise from the Belgian Cyber Security Coalition, the Quantum Circle, and the Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium (CCB). It consists of three volumes designed for different audiences, moving from awareness and decision-making to governance, financial planning, and technical implementation.
- Preparing for the Quantum Era – Updated Strategic Guidance: This volume introduces the quantum threat, raises awareness, and provides updates on timelines, policy developments, and the urgency of post-quantum migration. Its target audience is decision-makers.
- Managing the PQC Transition – Governance, Planning and Investment: This volume explains what is needed to initiate a PQC transition within an organisation, including governance, planning, responsibilities, funding considerations, and coordination across stakeholders. Its target audience is security, risk and compliance (GRC) teams, project managers and technical coordinators. (Release: 20 October 2026)
- Implementing the PQC Migration – Technical & Migration Guidance: This volume provides technical guidance on post-quantum cryptography and PQC migrations, including algorithm choices, implementation considerations, interoperability, testing, and operational deployment. Its target audience is engineers, developers, IT architecture and operations teams. (Release 20 November 2026)
