Tech Industry Luncheon closes 2025 by exploring the future of quantum technology

Tech Titans closed out its 2025 Tech Industry Luncheon Series with a star-packed lineup of speakers on a timely topic, Leading Quantum Readiness from Innovation to Security, last Friday. The event also marked the launch of the organization’s new Quantum Technology Forum.
 
First on the program was a panel discussion led by Rashmi Varma, CEO of QuantaWatt, with David Cardona, Co-founder, COO and General Counsel, Strangeworks; David Wiese, Senior Director, IonQ; and State Senator Tan Parker.
 
While the group expressed excitement about quantum’s potential uses in fields like fraud detection, logistics, and drug discovery, Sen. Parker stressed the importance of collaboration between officials in Austin and the business community to ensure a skilled workforce and capital investments are available to leaders in quantum.
 
Next up Mike Thompson, CEO, QuantaCyber, led a discussion on the race to Y2Q with Karl-Johan Nybell, Head of Strategic Security & Resilience Unit at Ericsson, and Mitch Thornton, Executive Director of the Darwin Deason Institute for Cybersecurity at SMU.
Y2Q is the cybersecurity deadline — though unfixed — by which the world's digital infrastructure must transition to quantum-safe encryption to avoid a catastrophic security failure.
 
Unlike Y2K, which had a fixed deadline (January 1, 2000), the exact date for Y2Q is unknown. It will arrive when the necessary quantum computing hardware and algorithmic breakthroughs converge. 
 
Dr. Thornton warned that malicious actors (including nation-states) are already harvesting and storing vast amounts of currently encrypted data, anticipating they will be able to decrypt it once they have a powerful quantum computer.
 
Gartner predicts that by 2029 quantum computing will render traditional cryptography unsafe, and that by 2034, it will be fully breakable.
 
The global effort to mitigate the Y2Q threat is the development and adoption of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) algorithms, which are cryptographic methods designed to be secure against both classical and future quantum computers.
 
The panel urged businesses to begin auditing their cryptographic dependencies and start the migration to quantum-safe encryption.
 
Tech Titans looks forward to bringing the DFW tech community another year of expert-led programs in 2026! Follow us on LinkedIn@techtitans for all the announcements.