Quantum Strategy for Manufacturing Leadership: The ICS Security and Optimisation Decisions That Are Arriving at the Same Time
Manufacturing executives face quantum on two distinct fronts simultaneously. ICS and SCADA systems that control production infrastructure depend on cryptographic protocols that are quantum-vulnerable, and those systems have operational lifetimes measured in decades. At the same time, quantum optimisation offers genuine near-term potential for production scheduling and supply chain management that vendors are actively promoting. This conversation is for the executives who need to evaluate both without the luxury of separating the security question from the opportunity question.
Event Details
- Who else is in the room
- Senior level executive peers, industry leaders, experts in risk, technology and business. Specifically: manufacturing CEOs, COOs, and CISOs with governance responsibility for ICS/SCADA security, production optimisation strategy, and supply chain integrity.
- Access
- Members only. Bundled with Expert Membership. Included with Expert Member tier
- Sponsor
- Organised by QSECDEF
- Facilitator
-
Anna Beata Kalisz Hedegaard Quantum Security Defence - Rules of engagement
- Chatham House Rule Chatham House Rule. Discussion is on the record; attribution is not. Participants may share what was said but not who said it.
- Format
- Roundtable Flexible between roundtable, structured Q&A or in-person hosted dinner
- Who Should Join
- This conversation is for CEOs, COOs, and CISOs at manufacturing companies where ICS and SCADA security and production optimisation both sit at the strategic level. It is most relevant to executives at companies with significant production infrastructure, complex supply chains, and long operational asset lifetimes. It is not for operations managers or technical ICS teams without strategic authority. Participants are expected to hold governance responsibility for both the security risk and the technology opportunity dimensions.
About This Conversation
Why this matters now
NIST's August 2024 standards finalisation created the technical baseline for PQC migration planning. Manufacturing ICS and SCADA environments present a specific migration challenge: constrained compute in legacy systems, update cycles of 10-15 years, and operational downtime constraints that make cryptographic upgrades far harder than in enterprise IT. While the EU Commission's 2024 Recommendation on Post-Quantum Cryptography calls on standards bodies to integrate PQC, no dedicated IEC 62443 PQC work item has yet been published. Supply chain cryptographic risk compounds the ICS exposure: a manufacturing operation may have migrated its enterprise IT to PQC-capable systems while its production floor SCADA communicates with supplier systems under pre-quantum protocols.
Outcomes
What you will leave with
- A frank comparative view from manufacturing peers of where PQC migration is actually progressing across ICS, SCADA, and enterprise IT, and which parts of the manufacturing environment are proving hardest to move
- A realistic assessment of quantum computing's near-term relevance for production scheduling, supply chain optimisation, and quality control, distinguishing what is available now from what is vendor aspiration
- Practical framing for the supply chain cryptographic risk: how to identify which supplier system dependencies represent the highest PQC migration risk, and what contractual and technical options exist
- Peer experience navigating the ICS downtime constraint: how manufacturing executives are managing cryptographic upgrades in production environments where a system restart is a significant operational event
- The governance framing: how to present quantum risk and opportunity to a board that understands production efficiency but has not yet connected either dimension to quantum
Your Facilitator
Anna Beata Kalisz Hedegaard
Founder, QSECDEF
Anna Beata Kalisz Hedegaard has over 15 years of international experience in deep-tech, telecommunications, and defence communications networks. Her expertise spans intellectual property, advanced communications systems, and quantum secure communications. She has lived and worked across Poland, Denmark, the United States, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Germany. Anna holds dual Master of Science degrees in Theoretical Cosmology from the University of Southern Denmark and Electrical Engineering from Wright State University, USA. She is the founder and board member of Quantum Security Defence.
View full profileExpert Membership
Industry Conversations are exclusive to Expert Members
Expert membership brings you into a closed community of senior security practitioners. Industry Conversations are included in the membership. Individual tickets are not available.
- Access to all Industry Conversations
- Speaker opportunities at the annual Paris Symposium
- Enhanced expert profile with lecture archive
- Advisory board nomination eligibility
- Co-branding opportunities and social amplification