A Look Back at PQ-Crypto 2026: The PEPR Quantique PQ-TLS Project at the Heart of the Event

From April 13^th to 16^th, 2026, Saint-Malo hosted the 13th edition of the PQ-Crypto conference, a major event for the international post-quantum cryptography community. Organized under the banner of the PQ-TLS project of the PEPR Quantum, this conference provided an opportunity to present the latest scientific advances and strengthen collaborations between researchers and industry.

Led by Pierre-Alain Fouque, a professor at the University of Rennes, the PQ-TLS project aims to develop post-quantum cryptographic schemes over the next five years that will be implemented in a web browser. Post-quantum cryptography protects Internet communications against attackers using quantum computers.

An organization led by the members of PQ-TLS

The conference was co-organized by Yixin Shen, a researcher at Inria Rennes and holder of an Early-Stage Researcher Chair within the PQ-TLS project, and Pierre-Alain Fouque, the project’s scientific coordinator. Magali Bardet, associate professor at the University of Rouen at the LITIS laboratory, co-chair of the conference, and member of the PQ-TLS project, also played a key role in its organization. Their commitment made it possible to offer an ambitious program, reflecting the excellence of the PEPR Quantum and the PEPR Cybersecurity.

A comprehensive scientific program

PQ-Crypto 2026 provided a comprehensive overview of innovations in post-quantum cryptography, featuring notable presentations by members of the PQ-TLS project:

Vladimir Sarde, a PhD student on the PQ-TLS project (joint thesis between UVSQ and IDEMIA), presented his progress on secure obfuscation techniques for multiplication.

André Schrottenloher, a researcher at the Inria Center at the University of Rennes, presented his work on optimizing quantum circuits for factorization and discrete logarithms.