The results of the European Defence Fund (EDF) 2024 Call for Proposals have recently been published, with the ORQESTRA project, featuring INESC-ID as a partner, among those selected within the topic of Disruptive Technologies – Quantum.

“Orchestrating the Operational Deployment of Quantum Resistant Services for Next-Generation Secure Defence Systems and Communications” (ORQESTRA) started its 36 month long work on December 1st, with a consortium of 19 European partners. INESC-ID’s participation will be managed by Leonel Sousa, researcher in High-Performance Computing Architectures and Systems. With a funding of €436K, the team will oversee the design and development of the trusted computing base (TCB), including the integration of programmable (SW) software optimisations and shared (HW) hardware accelerators, and countermeasures for physical vulnerabilities.

The overall focus of the project is on integrating post-quantum cryptography (PQC) technologies into real defence systems. By developing SW and HW, it aims to mitigate the gap between computing intensive problems of PQC and the operational deployment of cryptography systems.

EDF launched the call focused on technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), quantum and air defence, with the goal to support projects with the potential to transform the European defence sector.