Is this about buying a quantum computer?

No. The first conversation is cryptographic exposure on the estate you already run. IBM Quantum and Qiskit are in scope only when a workload actually needs them. Most regulated enterprises should fund inventory and PQC migration before a qubit pilot.

What is harvest-now, decrypt-later?

An adversary records ciphertext today — VPN, TLS, backups, message stores — and decrypts it later when a cryptographically relevant quantum computer exists. If the data still has value then, RSA and ECC on that traffic are already a present risk. That is why long-retention industries cannot wait for Q-day to start.

What did NIST actually standardize?

FIPS 203 ML-KEM for key encapsulation, FIPS 204 ML-DSA for signatures, and FIPS 205 SLH-DSA as a hash-based signature option. The practical near-term pattern on IBM gateways is hybrid: classical plus PQC, with algorithm agility so you are not frozen on one suite.

Do we have to rip out RSA next quarter?

No. You inventory, rank, and migrate in phases. Hybrid certificates and gateway TLS come first. Signing and long-lived archives follow. Systems that cannot be made agile get an exception with an owner and a date — in OpenPages, not in a slide.

Why Guild, versus a crypto boutique or IBM alone?

The cryptography already sits on IBM DataPower, MQ, Guardium, and PKI. Guild implements that stack, including DataPower-as-Code with HSM and Vault in the loop. Quantum-safe is a change to an operating model we already run — not a net-new tool someone else drops on the estate.

Crypto inventory · PQC · IBM Quantum where it is real

Quantum security starts with the cryptography you already run.

NIST has published post-quantum standards. Harvest-now, decrypt-later is a present risk for long-lived data. Guild inventories TLS, signing, gateways, and PKI on the IBM estate, ranks exposure, and migrates to quantum-safe algorithms — without pretending every workload is an IBM Quantum workload.

Harvest now, decrypt later

Traffic and archives captured today can be decrypted when a cryptographically relevant quantum computer arrives. Health, finance, government, and long-retention legal data are already in the blast radius.

NIST has published the algorithms

FIPS 203 ML-KEM, FIPS 204 ML-DSA, and FIPS 205 SLH-DSA are the current U.S. standards. The question is no longer which paper to watch. It is which certificates, gateways, and partners still speak only RSA and ECC.

Most estates have no inventory

Certificates, VPN, MQ, API gateways, code signing, and HSMs are rarely in one register. You cannot migrate what you cannot name, version, and rank.

The work is on the path you already run

Quantum-safe is not a new product line next to security. It is algorithm agility on DataPower, PKI, MQ, Guardium, and partner TLS — the same IBM estate Guild already implements.

Guild Quantum Security Framework

Inventory → Assess → Prioritize → Migrate → Operate.

Crypto-agility is the operating model. A one-time algorithm swap is how estates get stuck on the next broken suite.

01
Inventory
Cryptographic bill of materials across applications, gateways, partners, and HSMs
IBM Quantum Safe Explorer, DataPower, PKI, Vault
02
Assess
Rank by data longevity, algorithm, key length, and blast radius
OpenPages risk register, Guardium data classes
03
Prioritize
What must go hybrid or PQC first — and what can wait behind crypto-agility
TLS, signing, MQ, partner APIs
04
Migrate
Phased cutover: hybrid certificates, gateway TLS, HSMs, then archives
DataPower-as-Code, HSM/PKI, MQ
05
Operate
Recertify, monitor, and stay algorithm-agile. Do not freeze on one PQC suite
Guardium, OpenPages, Instana

How Guild engages

The commercial motion is a cryptography program on the IBM estate — assessment, inventory, then migration. IBM Quantum is an optional later conversation, scoped on its own merits.

Crypto-exposure assessment

A time-boxed pass over a representative slice of the estate: certificates, gateways, MQ, and PKI. You leave with a ranked register and a board-ready brief — not a qubit slide.

Cryptographic bill of materials

Inventory applications, appliances, partners, and HSMs. Name the algorithm, the owner, the data longevity, and the blast radius. This is the artifact migration is executed against.

PQC migration program

Hybrid TLS and certificates first, then signing, then archives. DataPower-as-Code and change windows so production is not a science project. Crypto-agility is a requirement of the design.

IBM Quantum pilot — only if the problem needs it

Optimization, simulation, or a research partnership on IBM Quantum and Qiskit. Scoped separately. It is never the substitute for the cryptography program.

Where the cryptography already lives

Quantum-safe work fails when it is treated as a lab adjacent to production. Guild starts on the path that already terminates TLS, holds keys, and classifies long-lived data.

Gateways and APIs

IBM DataPower, API Connect, and partner TLS terminate cryptography in production. Guild already treats that path as a governed operating model — Git, change control, Vault, HSM/PKI — so PQC is a sequenced change, not a weekend firmware hope.

Integration & DataPower →

PKI, HSMs, and secrets

Certificates, code signing, and keys live in HSMs and Enterprise Vault. The DataPower X3 program kept cryptographic objects in that loop on purpose. Quantum-safe migration uses the same control plane.

Gateway modernization case →

Data at rest and GRC

Long-lived databases, backups, and message stores are the harvest-now target. Guardium classifies the data. OpenPages holds the risk, exception, and evidence a CISO can take to the board.

Security & GRC →

Where IBM Quantum computing is a real conversation

Guild will not sell a quantum computer into a problem a classical solver already finishes. When the workload is combinatorial, material, or actuarial at a scale that exhausts current methods, we scope a pilot on IBM Quantum — algorithms in Qiskit, hybrid quantum-classical patterns, and a result you can defend. That work sits beside the security program. It does not replace it.

Portfolio optimization, risk, and fraud at scales that exhaust classical solvers
Molecular simulation for discovery and materials
Logistics and supply-chain combinatorial optimization
Grid and energy-materials problems
Actuarial and catastrophe modeling

Questions we hear first

Request a PQC exposure assessment

Bring a gateway estate, a PKI, or a board question about harvest-now. We will tell you whether the next step is inventory, migration, or an IBM Quantum pilot — and which one it is not.

Request a PQC assessment