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Pasqal and KACST team up to build quantum cryptography in Saudi Arabia

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August 31, 2026 by Ivy Delaney

Pasqal (Nasdaq: PSQL) and King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) formalized a research collaboration on August 31, 2026, prioritizing quantum cryptography as the initial focus of a multi-year program. The agreement, announced during World Quantum Day in Riyadh, pairs Pasqal’s neutral-atom technology with KACST’s research infrastructure to develop quantum-safe cryptographic solutions for the Saudi market. “This agreement reflects KACST’s commitment to building strategic research partnerships with global technology leaders,” said Talal Al-Sedairy, Senior Vice President for R&D at KACST, explaining that the partnership aims to elevate the Kingdom’s research capacity in quantum technologies.

KACST and Pasqal Advance Quantum Cryptography Research in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is actively strengthening its defenses against future cyber threats through a new research partnership focused on quantum cryptography. This work, initiated during World Quantum Day in Riyadh, directly addresses the increasing need for security in a world where current encryption methods are increasingly vulnerable to powerful quantum computers. The initial phase of the multi-year research program will concentrate specifically on quantum cryptography, utilizing Pasqal’s neutral-atom quantum processing technology alongside KACST’s existing national research infrastructure, with the goal of moving beyond theoretical research and delivering tangible cryptographic defenses.

Pasqal’s presence in Saudi Arabia extends beyond this collaboration; in May, the company inaugurated Saudi Arabia’s first quantum computer alongside Aramco, and the Middle East’s first commercial Quantum Computing-as-a-Service platform. This progress will be further showcased at LEAP 2026 in Riyadh, where Pasqal CEO Dr. Wasiq Bokhari will deliver a keynote address detailing the transition of quantum computing toward industrial applications.

“Saudi Arabia is demonstrating ambition to build the technologies and capabilities that will shape the next generation of computing,” said Dr. Bokhari. “For Pasqal, our work in the Kingdom goes beyond deploying quantum hardware; we want to build long-term partnerships, develop practical applications and contribute to an ecosystem capable of turning quantum computing into real industrial and economic value.” Prof. Manahel Thabet, Director of the National Center for Quantum Technologies, emphasized the importance of this partnership in establishing a robust national quantum ecosystem, stating, “This partnership represents an important step toward building an advanced national quantum ecosystem.”

This initiative builds on Saudi Arabia’s growing investment in quantum technologies and demonstrates Pasqal’s continued deep engagement and commitment to the Kingdom regarding the development and utilization of quantum technologies.

Wasiq Bokhari, CEO of Pasqal
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Ivy Delaney

Ivy Delaney has been working with neural networks and machine learning since the mid-nineties, back when a couple of hidden layers and a long afternoon of training counted as ambitious. She has watched the field go from academic curiosity to the thing quietly running underneath everything, and she brings that long view to quantum computing. For Quantum Zeitgeist she covers the ground where the two fields meet. That means quantum machine learning and the variational algorithms it leans on, and it also means the less glamorous but more interesting story of classical machine learning already doing real work inside quantum machines, decoding error-correcting codes, calibrating noisy hardware and learning the error models that simulators depend on. She writes about the hardware those algorithms have to run on too, and about the post-quantum cryptography scramble that the same hardware has set off. Her stories typically start with the paper, whether that is peer-reviewed work, conference proceedings or an arXiv preprint, with the source linked so you can hold a claim up against the research it came from. She is unimpressed by benchmarks that will not say what they beat, and by demonstrations that only work in the press release.

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