The air crackled with a sense of anticipation, the room buzzing with the low hum of powerful computers. Scientists, their eyes glued to flickering screens, were on the verge of a breakthrough. Quantum computing, once confined to the realm of science fiction, was now poised to reshape the very fabric of reality. While the world marvelled at these nascent advancements, a quiet revolution was brewing in India. At the helm of this revolution stood QuNu Labs Private Limited, aka QNu Labs, a company dedicated to pushing the boundaries of quantum technology.

Led by the visionary Sunil Gupta, QNu Labs emerged as a beacon of innovation in the Indian quantum technology landscape. Sunil, a man driven by an insatiable curiosity and a deep-seated belief in the transformative power of technology, assembled a team of brilliant minds, each a specialist in their respective fields. Together, they embarked on a journey not just to understand quantum mechanics but to harness its power to solve real-world problems.

QuNu Labs quickly established itself as a force to be reckoned with, developing cutting-edge solutions that pushed the boundaries of what was previously thought possible. Their work spanned a diverse range of applications, from developing novel quantum algorithms for drug discovery to creating ultra-secure quantum communication networks. The company’s commitment to excellence resonated throughout the scientific community, attracting the attention of leading researchers and investors alike.

Sunil, a true visionary, understood that the success of QNu Labs depended not just on technological prowess, but also on fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration. He cultivated a team environment where creativity was encouraged, and bold ideas were celebrated. This emphasis on a collaborative spirit fostered a dynamic and productive work environment, allowing the team to push the boundaries of their ingenuity.

Sunil is a technology and business leader and an entrepreneur with 35+ years of experience, specializing in products and product engineering in cutting-edge technologies.

After completing a degree in Computer Science from NIT Trichy, Sunil has played an instrumental role in building several products and teams in different startups and Fortune 500 companies to help them get their products/offerings quickly to market.

Sunil is obsessed with new technologies and considers himself fortunate to have been part of teams in building some of the industry’s best products and solutions in cutting-edge technologies such as satellite communications, multi-media middleware for smartphones, indigenous switching software, core banking software and AI-based cybersecurity platforms. Sunil’s passion has been to create highly passionate and focused teams to build disruptive solutions.

As the Co-founder and CEO of QNu Labs, Sunil is responsible for building the vision and strategy of the company and creating a highly passionate team of ‘EnterpreNerds’ to build a successful deep tech company in quantum technology from India which will offer solutions globally. Under his leadership, QNu Labs has not only developed India’s first commercially ready quantum-safe security products and solutions but has been evangelizing quantum tech over the last five years to take it to the mainstream.

Sunil is a strong advocate of making India a powerhouse in the world of quantum skills and quantum technologies. He envisions putting India at the forefront of deep technologies in the field of data security through the use of quantum technology.

As QNu Labs continued to make significant strides in the field of quantum technology, it solidified its position as a leader in the Indian market and a key player on the global stage. Sunil and his team, driven by a shared passion for pushing the boundaries of human knowledge, are not just developing cutting-edge technologies; they are shaping the future of computing and ushering in a new era of technological advancement.

The story of QNu Labs, told by Sunil in the following discussion with CIOLook India, is a testament to the power of human ingenuity and the transformative potential of quantum technology.

Sir, please brief our audience about your firm, its USPs, and how you are currently positioned as one of the rising solution providers.

QNu Labs was founded in 2016 to build the next generation of data security products and solutions that will offer future security against quantum computers (QCs) and sensitive data with long shelf life. QNu Labs is the pioneer of quantum technology in India and has built commercially ready and proven products and assets which offer unique value propositions to govt and private enterprises to secure their data in the pre and post-quantum world. We have five patents granted on our technology and several awards and accolades for innovation and commercialization of indigenous technology.

QNu Labs’ USP is that we offer a hybrid model where both quantum cryptography (hardware) and post-quantum cryptography (software) based solutions leverage the best of both technologies to offer the highest level of security with the flexibility to adopt the technologies across industry verticals and use cases.

We are a leader in quantum cryptography products and solutions, offering security for data at rest and in transit. Being India’s first company with commercially ready products and solutions in the quantum technology space, we take pride in saying that we have put India on the Quantum map of the world and have made India self-reliant in this crucial technology, which is going to of immense strategic importance in the new emerging geopolitical landscape. We offer a hybrid platform that is adaptive, proven & flexible for both quantum-safe and quantum-resilient deployments. QNu Labs caters to telecom, healthcare, banking and finance, critical infrastructure, federal operations, and other sectors.

We are working with Indian Defence and public enterprises to protect national secrets, confidential data and PII. We are working closely with clients to understand their risks and pain points and identify the relevant use cases to pilot and deploy our solutions.

Tell us more about your firm’s offering and what aspects make it stand out in the cutthroat competition.

In the post-quantum world, scalable QCs will potentially break all the existing public and private key algorithms which are used everywhere in our daily lives today, including the internet, messaging, banking, emails, etc. In order to ensure that hackers are unable to break the current encrypted data using QCs in the future, QNu Labs built encryption key generation, distribution, and management products and solutions which will make QCs safe.

QNu offers three products and platforms – Quantum Key Distribution (Armos), Quantum Random Number Generator (Tropos) and Post Quantum Cryptography platform (Hodos). Leveraging these products, QNu Labs has built very powerful and pertinent solutions such as

• Entropy as a cloud service – Qosmos.
• Quantum secure remote access workplace – Qshield.
• Quantum secure Messaging platform – Qverse, and
• Quantum Secure storage for securing keys and encryption as a service – Qvault.

Additionally, the solutions are designed to plug in with existing infrastructure with ease and don’t require any ripping or replacing, making the solutions the most viable and cost-effective for everyone to adopt and start reaping the benefits of the same in just four weeks.

Our solutions save an enterprise a few million dollars, several months of agony in business disruption, and future data security if they choose to migrate to quantum secure solutions over the current solution of doubling the key sizes every two years.

What professional qualities and values do you think your clients admire in you the most?

Our clients appreciate the passion and enthusiasm of our leadership team and trust them for their strong expertise, which has spanned over three decades in each of their fields – cyber security, communication, and product engineering.  The core team members have strong credentials, domain expertise, and experience that inspire confidence in clients.

Our leadership team are seen as trusted advisors who work with clients, partners and other ecosystem players to evangelize, build standards and do capability building. Our leadership team is also seen as the experts in their domain and exuberate confidence that they will provide the best advice.

QNu has always swiftly adapted to changes, responded promptly to inquiries, and executed projects efficiently as promised.

Clients admire expertise, quick response, flexibility in their approach, and the ability to deliver on promises as key values.

Being an experienced leader, share your opinion on how the adoption of modern technologies like AI&ML impacts the startup space and how your company is adapting to the change.

Modern technologies such as AI&ML have a phenomenal impact on almost all industries, and the world will see totally different and disruptive capabilities and solutions soon, which couldn’t be imagined a few years ago. We will see AI being used on data at the edge server and devices as more and more data moves to the edge. This will pose a huge security issue and security requirement for edge devices, especially in the post-quantum world that is already here.

QNu Labs’ solutions offer future security for data on edge devices. Soon, we will see the quantum security stack becoming an integral part of the cybersecurity framework and regulations.

QNu Labs also has plans to leverage AI in a couple of its products to offer a value multiplier in its solutions.