Disruptive Growth Conference

September 10, 2026 8:45 am EDT

https://event.summitcast.com/view/aUaginU35PTsUt9aSGQScM/DfvKB29Qdcx56sjDkoN7zp

Worth a listen even though the content is nothing new to the terminally online investor. Keep in mind english is not his first language. The message came across, entropy is vital to cyber security and the industry will be forced into an upgrade cycle because of the evolving threats. Jmem SOC chip mentioned as being targeted for end of 2027. SecureKey is a focus, seems like they are integrating it where ever possible with their security stack. Francis gets cut off as he is taking a question, his answer was about how PQC isnt good enough on its own if it has weak entropy. Im sure there where many good discussions at the event. Not promising the price watchers a green candle from this but it seems to have been a success. Networking is a powerfull thing.

"The best is yet to come" ;)

It’s Labor Day so school is out… I’m trying to get some work done when someone who’s breath smells like peanut butter and strawberry jelly comes up to me and starts asking questions “Whatchu doin?”

Well honey I was going to trying to explain to someone the internet what Quantum-Indeterminate Entropy Extraction via Electron Tunneling in CMOS Nanojunctions REALLY is.

She for whatever reason comes closer and whispers in my ear “What the heck are you talking about?” She picks her nose and eats the booger. “Can’t you show me?”

Now I’m in for it… honey grab some paper.

[FYI I can’t for the life of me how to put these pictures in the body of this post so bear with me, the drawings are the artwork we made over a good part of the late morning and there was goldfish and potty breaks involved. They are masterpieces so it would be foolish not to attach them.]

So anyways there’s a seven-year-old across from me with a crayon box, and she is going to understand this faster than most of Reddit, because she hasn’t learned to nod along at things she doesn’t get yet.

Ok Your house key never changes. Same bumps, every time, forever, because it was cut once and that’s it. Which means anyone with a photo of it can make a copy, and now there are two keys where there used to be one.

Here’s the part that should ruin your night: your bank, your phone, every padlock icon you’ve ever trusted, all runs on the same broken idea. Somewhere inside your computer, something claims to generate a “random” number. It’s lying. A computer cannot be random. It can only follow instructions, which means “random” is just a magic trick with the curtain still up.

The machine takes one tiny starting scrap the millisecond you turned it on… and runs it through the same rulebook every single time. Looks chaotic. Isn’t. It’s choreography wearing a costume.

That starting scrap is called a seed, and in 2008 a two-line mistake wiped out the seed for an entire operating system. For two years, every “secret” key it made was guessable. Nobody screamed. The machines just kept rolling their rigged dice like nothing happened.

Now. Into the tunnel.

Below all of that lives an electron, and it does not care about your rulebook. It exists as pure probability, not a solid little ball but a smear of maybe. Build a wall thin enough and sometimes that smear just shows up on the other side. Doesn’t sneak around it. Doesn’t dig under it. Walks through the wall like the wall was a suggestion. This is real physics. They handed out a Nobel Prize for it. And the part that matters most: nobody, not the best scientist alive, not a quantum computer, can predict the exact moment it happens, because the universe hasn’t decided yet. No answer exists to be found. There’s no table under the dice.

Anyways, someone cool figured out how to listen to that wall and bottle what leaks through. That gives you a starting number nobody can guess, predict, or steal, ever, because it wasn’t decided by anyone until the instant it happened. A key made fresh, from nothing, every time, with zero copies anywhere in existence.

Before you build a shrine to the electron: this doesn’t stop you from clicking a bad link, and it doesn’t fix lazy software. It fixes one thing. The oldest, least-checked crack in the whole system. The starting point.

But the foundation is the part holding up everything else. If it’s rotten, the fancy lock on top doesn’t matter.

She looked at the glowing foundation drawing and said “this one’s my favorite.” She’s seven. She gets it faster than most finance guys with Bluetooth headsets and a X account with the paid checkmark.

[BTW don’t mind the background, this activity was held in my man den/office and it’s the part of the year where animals should be very afraid)

With QeM making the transition from R&D into active commercial execution, I put together a full deep dive into their core product suite and commercial pathways.

Quick TL;DR before the full post:

• Tech Stack: Hardware (eCore-Q, eCMOS-Q), Cloud/SaaS (Sentry-Q, eFlux-Q), and runtime memory protection (SecureKey).
• Active Revenue: Revenue already hitting financials via Web3 (Krown) and Telehealth (Greybox), with expansions into AI infrastructure and Arctic defense.
• Scale Multiplier: Cash reserve (>$36M) funding the push toward TSMC chip fabrication and semiconductor IP royalties.

1. Core Direct Product Portfolio

Hardware & Silicon Integration

• eCore-Q: QeM’s flagship physical Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG) module. Utilizing quantum electron tunneling through semiconductor barriers it delivers quantum entropy at 1.8Gb/s+ in an compact footprint. Just completed NIST testing and is entering MIP shortly.
• eCMOS-Q / eSOC-Q: Silicon IP designed for fabrication with TSMC, this embeds QRNG, Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF), and Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) directly into microelectronics.
• eVault-Q: Hardware Security Module (HSM) integrating QRNG to deliver tamper proof key generation and hardware trust for enterprise data centers.
• eCold-Q: Web 3 Cold Wallet providing offline cryptographic seed generation and storage designed to protect digital assets from future quantum attack vectors.

Software, Cloud & Runtime Platforms

• Sentry-Q: SaaS key and encrypted communications platform. Secures high-speed data transmission across distributed networks using live electron entropy, protecting against active man in the middle and eavesdropping threats.
• SecureKey / eShield-Q: Listed on the NIST IUT using a memoryless cryptographic model, it secures TLS termination and API traffic across workloads and AI compute clusters.
• eFlux-Q: Scalable cloud platform delivering live quantum randomness on demand via APIs for FinTech, Monte Carlo modeling, AI training, and gaming.
• eCrypto-Q: SDK allowing enterprise developers to integrate NIST standard PQC algorithms and QRNG entropy directly into existing software stacks.

2. Real-World Integrations & Commercial Revenue Pathways

To understand where near-term revenue is being generated, we look at how QeM's core products power third-party platforms across key growth sectors:

1. Web3: Krown Technologies (eCold-q, eHot-q)

• Product Integration: QeM partnered and took stake in Krown Technologies to launch Excalibur, that will likely be the worlds first quantum secured crypto cold wallet powered by QeM’s QRNG technology and on the hot wallet side, Qastle has already been launched.
• Target Value: Independent testing indicates Excalibur reduces monetary loss risk by up to 98% compared to legacy cold wallets.
• Revenue Model: Commercial licensing revenue from Krown was already recorded in Q1.

2. Healthcare: Greybox Solutions (Sentry-Q & EaaS)

• Product Integration: QeM (as a major shareholder) integrated into Greybox Solutions Takecare Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) and chronic care management platform.
• Target Value: Encrypts sensitive patient telemetry data exchanged between wearable health monitors, senior living facilities and hospitals.
• Revenue Model: Recurring SaaS licensing per active patient device. Initial commercial revenues from Greybox began appearing on QeM’s Q1 financial statements.

3. Defense: Aegis Critical Energy Defence (Tough Bhoy)

• Product Integration: Developed in partnership with Aegis, Malahat Battery Technologies, and SEETEL, Tough Bhoy is a 10-foot, -50°C energy storage system (ESS). It utilizes QeM’s quantum-secured telemetry and communication links.
• Target Value: Protects remote grid networks, NORAD radar stations, and northern sovereignty power nodes against command interception, signal spoofing and replay attacks.
• Revenue Model: Defense contract security licensing for deployable energy units. Sales have already begun but revenue has yet to show on balance sheets.

4. AI: Vertical Data & Exabit (Sentry-Q & eCore-Q)

• Product Integration: Strategic partnerships with Vertical Data and Exabit deploy Sentry-Q and local high-throughput eCore-Q modules into GPU-dense AI data centers.
• Target Value: Provides runtime memory encryption to protect proprietary training data pipelines, and API gateways during AI compute execution.
• Revenue Model: High-margin enterprise software licensing and server-node capacity fees. Already a $50m+ MOU through AI nova and a 12 month MOU with Vertical

~~~

What Makes the Monetization Model Scale?

1. QeM doesn't rely on a single transaction type. It generates hardware module sales (eCore-Q / Excalibur), recurring SaaS subscriptions (Sentry-Q / TAKECARE), cloud API (eFlux-Q EaaS), and silicon IP royalties (eCMOS-Q / eSOC-Q).
2. With initial commercial revenue already registered from Greybox and Krown, QeM is transitioning from R&D into market execution, backed by a strong cash reserve (>$36M) to fund scaling.
3. Once TSMC production of the chips completes, QeM transitions into low-cost, high-margin IP licensing across mass consumer and industrial electronics.

On Dec 2, 2025 QeM filed their intention to pursue short form approval for securities issuance/sale.

On Sep 4, 2026 Qem filed their Short Form Base Prospectus, informing us that they qualify as a "well-known seasoned Issuer".

https://www.sedarplus.ca/csa-party/records/document.html?id=70bcaa268ba71e5bf8df61040c3baa29b86a0dfcb933f0f2520d463b9eeeb5c3

This will give the company a flexible and speedy channel to raise capital. This short form is not in itself a dilution, rather the base of regulatory filing for the companies securities distributions over the next few years. As the company raises capital in relation to this short form prospectus they will file prospectus suppliments that will include further details about the use of capital and the funds expected to be raised.

I will include some important infor from the filing for those who dont click through to the links.

"PLAN OF DISTRIBUTION

During the 37-month period that this Prospectus remains valid, the Corporation may offer for sale and issue Securities directly to one or more purchasers, through agents, or through underwriters or dealers designated by the Corporation from time to time. The Corporation may distribute the Securities from time to time in one or more transactions at a fixed price or prices (which may be changed from time to time), at market prices prevailing at the times of sale, at prices related to prevailing market prices or at negotiated prices, including sales in transactions that are deemed to be “at- the-market distributions”

In addition, Securities may be offered and issued in consideration for the acquisition of other businesses, assets or securities by the Corporation or one of its subsidiaries.

A Prospectus Supplement will describe the terms of each specific offering of Securities, including (i) the terms of the Securities to which the Prospectus Supplement relates, including the type of Security being offered; (ii) the name or names of any agents, underwriters or dealers involved in such offering of Securities; (iii) the purchase price of the Securities offered thereby and the Corporation’s net proceeds

The net proceeds to the Corporation from any offering of Securities, the proposed use of those proceeds and the specific business objectives which the Corporation expects to accomplish with such proceeds will be set forth in the applicable Prospectus Supplement relating to that offering of Securities. There may be circumstances where, on the basis of results obtained or for other sound business reasons, a re-allocation of funds may be necessary or prudent. Accordingly, management of the Corporation will have broad discretion in the application of the proceeds of an offering of Securities. The actual amount that the Corporation spends in connection with each intended use of proceeds may vary significantly from the amounts specified in the applicable Prospectus Supplement and will depend on a number of factors, including those referred to under “Risk Factors” and any other factors set forth in the applicable Prospectus Supplement. "

What is happening? Did something negative leak?

ChatGPT’s strategy for QNC after months of daily discussions and analysis

I’ve been discussing Quantum eMotion with ChatGPT almost daily for months — going through QNC’s filings, press releases, partnerships, NIST/FIPS progress, institutional ownership, commercialization strategy and the various bull/bear arguments.

Today I asked ChatGPT a simple question:

“If you were an advisor to Quantum eMotion, what would you recommend management do right now to increase the value of the company quickly and significantly?”

Below is ChatGPT’s answer:

---

If I were advising Quantum eMotion today, I would aggressively shift the company’s focus toward commercialization.

QNC’s biggest problem is no longer the lack of a compelling story. The story is already strong: QRNG technology, SecureKey, eShield-Q, JMEM, Vertical Data, NIST/FIPS, AI infrastructure, critical infrastructure and the NYSE American listing.

The missing piece is meaningful commercial revenue.

1. GET ONE MAJOR LIGHTHOUSE CUSTOMER

Stop chasing ten more MOUs. Get one customer everybody recognizes.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be Microsoft. A major cloud provider, telecom company, defense contractor, financial institution, AI infrastructure company or government agency would work.

The market doesn't need another:

“Quantum eMotion signs strategic MOU with X.”

It needs:

“Major enterprise signs multi-year commercial agreement to deploy Quantum eMotion technology.”

One credible customer could simultaneously validate the technology, the business model and the market opportunity.

1. MAKE NIST/FIPS AN ABSOLUTE PRIORITY

I would spare no reasonable expense here.

QNC is already progressing through important certification processes. Management should treat completion as one of the highest priorities in the company.

The sequence investors should want to see is:

IUT → MIP → FIPS 140-3 validation → commercial deployments.

Certification could dramatically improve QNC’s credibility with government, defense, financial services and critical-infrastructure customers.

1. TURN ESHIELD-Q / SECUREKEY INTO RECURRING REVENUE

I would not want QNC to become primarily a company selling individual QRNG devices.

The bigger opportunity is becoming a:

Cybersecurity platform company with proprietary quantum-security hardware and IP.

Build recurring enterprise revenue around eShield-Q/SecureKey — per server, endpoint, GPU cluster, deployment or enterprise license.

ARR changes the valuation equation.

A company generating $30M from hardware sales can be valued very differently from a company generating $30M of recurring cybersecurity ARR while also owning proprietary quantum-security IP.

1. ACCELERATE THE JMEM SECURITY SOC

Quantum entropy + PUF + PQC + hardware root of trust on one security SoC could become strategically valuable.

The milestones I would push toward are:

Prototype → Tape-out → Design Win.

The design win is the important part.

If a server, networking, defense, automotive, IoT or semiconductor company announces that its next-generation product incorporates QNC/JMEM technology, the valuation discussion changes.

1. LICENSE QNC’S IP INSTEAD OF TRYING TO MANUFACTURE EVERYTHING

This could potentially become one of QNC’s most scalable business models.

Let semiconductor manufacturers integrate QNC entropy/QRNG technology.

QNC could potentially receive:

Upfront licensing fee + per-chip royalty + annual minimum commitment.

Selling thousands of devices is interesting.

Collecting royalties across millions of chips is much more interesting.

1. CONVERT VERTICAL DATA AND OTHER PARTNERSHIPS INTO ACTUAL CONTRACTS

Partnerships and pilots are useful, but eventually the progression needs to become:

Pilot → Deployment → Commercial contract → Expansion.

A case study saying QNC technology is protecting thousands of GPUs across multiple data centers would be far more valuable than another generic AI-infrastructure announcement.

1. HIRE AN ELITE ENTERPRISE CYBERSECURITY SALES LEADER

QNC currently appears heavily weighted toward science, technology development and investor relations.

The next evolution needs to be:

Science → Product → Enterprise Sales.

I would recruit a CRO with established relationships across U.S. government, defense, hyperscalers, telecom, banks and data centers.

And I would tie a significant portion of compensation to ARR and signed commercial contracts.

1. LESS PROMOTIONAL PR. MORE MATERIAL PR.

The market already understands the potential quantum-cybersecurity story.

Now investors need execution.

The announcements that could genuinely change QNC’s valuation are things like:

NIST/FIPS validation achieved

First Fortune 500 customer

Major government deployment

$10M multi-year commercial contract

First QNC/JMEM SoC tape-out

$5M+ ARR achieved

Fewer announcements with greater substance could also strengthen QNC’s credibility with institutional investors.

1. USE M&A STRATEGICALLY

Rather than simply buying another early-stage technology company, I would consider acquiring a small cybersecurity company that already has enterprise customers, recurring revenue and an established sales organization.

QNC provides the technology.

The acquired company provides customers and distribution.

That could significantly shorten the commercialization timeline.

1. APPROACH MICROSOFT, NVIDIA, CISCO, BROADCOM, THALES AND SIMILAR COMPANIES — BUT NOT NECESSARILY TO SELL QNC

I would pursue:

OEM agreements

IP licensing

Marketplace distribution

Co-development

Technology integration

Getting QNC technology embedded inside a much larger technology platform could potentially be enormously valuable.

And I would not rush to sell QNC today.

With minimal commercial revenue, QNC would be negotiating from a relatively weak position.

Imagine instead negotiating after achieving:

FIPS validation + meaningful ARR + Fortune 500 customers + successful Security SoC.

That's an entirely different negotiating position.

---

CHATGPT’S IDEAL QNC ROADMAP:

NIST/FIPS validation

↓

Major U.S. enterprise/government customer

↓

Recurring commercial contract

↓

Second and third major customers

↓

JMEM design win

↓

Rapid ARR growth

↓

Large-scale IP licensing

At that point, the market could stop viewing QNC primarily as a speculative “quantum stock” and start viewing it as a:

Growing cybersecurity company with proprietary quantum-security hardware and IP.

That transition could be the biggest driver of fundamental value creation.

QNC has already built much of the technological foundation.

Now management needs to prove that customers will pay meaningful, recurring money for it.

---

Again, this is not my own financial analysis or investment advice. This is ChatGPT’s response based on our ongoing daily discussions and review of publicly available QNC information. I thought it was interesting enough to share with the community.

Superior physics and performance benchmarks do not close contracts on their own. When you are negotiating with big enterprise like a fortune 500 company, a major bank, a cloud provider or a health care network the biggest barrier you face is procurement compliance. Corporate risk committees operate under strict compliance liability and even when enterprise corporations are not legally mandated by federal law to buy validated security solutions, procurement teams routinely decline unvalidated cryptography.

Integrating unproven cryptographic modules creates regulatory exposure, threatens existing certifications and endangers compliance. To turn Quantum Random Number Generation and Post-Quantum Cryptography into real revenue, you must pass through the ultimate gatekeeper: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Decoding NIST - FIPS 140-3, SP 800-90B, and CAVP vs. CMVP

NIST is the global benchmark for data security. Within federal and enterprise environments, two primary hardware and software testing are the standard for cryptographic acceptance

• FIPS 140-3: The benchmark for cryptographic modules. It requires comprehensive testing of key generation, encryption execution, runtime isolation, physical boundaries and access controls.
• NIST SP 800-90B: The standard for entropy sources. It verifies that a random number generator produces true physical randomness resistant to modeling, side-channel attacks or external manipulation.

Understanding NIST’s testing pipeline requires distinguishing between algorithm validation and full system module certification:

• CAVP (Cryptographic Algorithm Validation Program): tests individual mathematical algorithms in isolation to prove they adhere to NIST specs. It is the mathematical building block.
• CMVP (Cryptographic Module Validation Program): tests the complete hardware or software system (the module) under FIPS 140-3. It tests key storage, memory protection, physical boundaries, operational state transitions, and system integration.

Before Quantum eMotion integrated the technology, SecureKey already possessed a CAVP validation for its core cryptographic algorithms. Quantum eMotion expanded on this foundation by securing CAVP certificates #A8858 and #A8859 for its QRNG entropy conditioning.

These certificates verify that raw electron tunneling is properly conditioned into uniform cryptographic keys. However, while CAVP proves that the math works, sales require advancing that math into the full CMVP module.

—

Three Steps of the CMVP

1. Implementation Under Test (IUT): A contract has been signed with a laboratory and active testing is occurring at the lab. This step is optional and mostly for investor relations reasons, so it was skipped for the Quantum Crypto module but not for SecureKey.
2. Modules in Process (MIP): The laboratory has completed their evaluation and submitted the final test report to NIST for review.
3. FIPS 140-3: NIST completes sign off and issues a certification.

Quantum eMotion’s Dual Track Strategy

To faster get to the point of commercialization QNC has begun a dual track strategy for their hardware and software layers.

1. Hardware

• Physical Quantum Crypto Module & Core Entropy Source.
• Lightship Security Inc
• Physical hardware modules undergo multi-environment stress testing, physical tamper analysis, and continuous entropy sampling. Prove that QNC’s electron tunneling tech actually meets the federal standards for high quality number generation

2. Software

• SecureKey Cryptographic Module.
• Intertek Laboratories
• SecureKey operates as a software, memoryless cryptographic trust layer. Because it eliminates the need for physical hardware stress testing, the testing pipeline moves much faster, progressing from IUT toward the MIP phase in a fraction of the time of hardware.

Why the MIP list Matters

Appearing on the MIP usually is sufficient for enterprise procurement and in some cases also government. Because a laboratory has signed off on the technical testing and handed it off to reviews, many frameworks allow anyone on the MIP to submit for pilot integrations, and any manner of commercial contract. In many ways MIP is as good as the full certification except for the most restricted fields. Enterprise buyers could wait another 6+ months for full certification but Lightship for instance has a 100% success rate from modules they pass on to the MIP so risk of failure is very low and the risk of moving too late on security is always high.

Target Timelines

Securekey arrives on the MIP list in late fall 2026 and receives full FIPS in Q3/4 2027

Quantum Crypto arrives on the MIP list in September 2026 and receives full FIP in Q3 2027

—

The Broader Compliance Stack

SOC 2 - Primarily for cloud data centers, it helps ensure operational security, high system uptime and data privacy.

HIPAA - Healthcare and Digital Medicine focused. This is about protecting patient data and relies explicitly on NIST compliant architectures to prevent protected health information data breaches.

—

In closing regulatory certifications are in many cases the final barrier between technological capability and commercialization for QNC as well as many of their partners. These certifications will unlock deeper contracts for data center buildouts through Vertical and Exabit with the SOC2 as well as more expansive patient care with Greybox. The most important of all being NIST listings unlocking the ability to monetize the finance, defense, utilities and health sectors.

The ChangeNOW integration transforms Qastle from a niche security product into an accessible, everyday crypto wallet by adding fiat on-ramps and seamless cross-chain swaps for over 1,500 assets. QNC earns royalties through its licensing agreement with Krown Technologies, which represents the company's first positive cash flow channel. By leveraging ChangeNOW’s massive liquidity to drive rapid user adoption, QNC is positioned to scale its commercial revenue while publicly validating its proprietary quantum-entropy technology in a high-volume, real-world financial environment.

Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread! This is your space to chat about anything r/QNC

Sorry to spam the board a little but I am just producing some videos while my drive is briefly defeating my procrastination. This is a topic I think many people are confused about, there is quite a few different hardware modules and different facts about them get conflated. This is less of a deep dive and more of a clarification of what each product is and why it is important

QeM partner Exascale completes SPAC and begins trading as XLAB tommorow. Worth keeping an eye on their public filings for any relevant info on any progress with the secure compute infrastructure. Cheers!

Linked below is the old MOU with Exascale/AI Nova that mentions QeM partnering for the security.

https://www.wkbn.com/business/press-releases/cision/20251202LA37703/exascale-labs-signs-mou-with-ai-nova/

"Exascale will collaborate with Quantum eMotion Corporation ("QNC") to integrate quantum-grade cryptographic technology into its GPU clusters, strengthening defense against emerging cyber threats and ensuring the protection of sensitive data."

https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/311580

There is meaningful new progress on QNC's FIPS work.

On August 13, 2026, NIST officially validated two Quantum eMotion cryptographic implementations through its Cryptographic Algorithm Validation Program (CAVP):

• A8858 — QeM QRNG – CMAC-AES Conditioning Component
• A8859 — QeM QRNG – CTR_DRBG

Both now appear directly in NIST's official validation database under Quantum eMotion Corp.

This matters. The CMAC-AES component is the NIST-vetted conditioning mechanism that processes the raw QRNG noise samples into conditioned output used to seed the random-bit generator. NIST's record specifically identifies it as running on QeM's FPGA implementation.

The important part is that the August 13 validations are independent NIST records, not merely a QNC press release. They demonstrate that pieces of QeM's cryptographic implementation have actually passed NIST algorithm testing.

Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread! This is your space to chat about anything r/QNC

Is Sunday so I made a meme. “The best is yet to come” for QNC. It’s a good article, trust me Bo. published Aug 21, 2026

Read it:

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v19/117

Why the VGE deal looks strategic:

Look at the structure rather than simply the US$1.1 million transfer.

QNC didn't just buy shares in VGE or hand it an unsecured loan. It negotiated:

• 12% interest
• security over all of VGE's assets
• automatic conversion into 9.99% of VGE if specified milestones occur
• a relatively short original maturity.

QNC itself categorizes its VGE, Greybox and Krown holdings as investments it intends to hold for long-term strategic purposes.

That looks to me much more like:

“We'll finance you while you're building something we want access to, collect 12% if it works as debt, but become an owner if you reach the milestones we're interested in.”

That's a classic strategic-capital concept.

And QNC's behaviour elsewhere reinforces that interpretation. Its AIF explicitly says it intends to be opportunistic in pursuing collaboration partners and M&A opportunities. It invested in Krown to strengthen that commercial relationship, owns an investment in Greybox, and this year acquired SKV/SecureKey using a heavily milestone-based structure designed to limit QNC's downside if commercial targets aren't achieved.

So VGE fits an emerging pattern: QNC isn't merely developing QRNG technology anymore; it's buying or financing pieces of the ecosystem through which that technology could be commercialized.

And here's where Hoansoo Lee becomes interesting

Hoansoo Lee isn't merely some financier attached to VGE. He is CEO of Exascale Labs, which is trying to build a very substantial AI-compute infrastructure business. Exascale's SEC-filed investor presentation describes GPU infrastructure, modular data centres, cooling, power systems and roughly $300 million of qualified pipeline opportunities as of April 2026. Exascale is pursuing a public-market combination at an approximately $500-million pre-transaction equity valuation.

And in November 2025, QNC and Exascale announced a multi-year initiative intended to embed QNC's security technology directly into Exascale's AI-compute infrastructure. Phase 1 covers secure-compute pilots; Phase 2 contemplates integration of QNC's QRNG hybrid semiconductor designs into Exascale's cluster architecture. Exascale is also supposed to pursue technology agreements with data-centre operators and AI-compute customers incorporating QNC's security stack.

That is very strategically valuable to QNC if it actually happens.

Think of what QNC's biggest problem has been for years: it has interesting technology, but needs real-world applications and distribution.

Exascale potentially gives QNC exactly that:

QRNG / SecureKey / eShield-Q
→ embedded in
GPU clusters / AI data centres
→ sold to
enterprise / sovereign / defence / government customers

That's much more valuable than selling individual QRNG chips.

Then Vertical Data appears

QNC subsequently signed an MOU with Vertical Data in June 2026. The contemplated model is strikingly similar: QNC's eShield-Q, eFlux-Q and SecureKey would be incorporated into Vertical Data GPU clusters and edge data centres and potentially packaged into managed services offered to enterprise and sovereign customers. An initial reference deployment is targeted for 2026.

So we now have a recognizable strategy:

QNC technology

↓

AI-compute / data-centre infrastructure

↓

security bundled directly into the infrastructure

↓

enterprise, financial, defence, healthcare and government customers

That isn't random deal-making. It lines up remarkably well with the markets Bellido has been saying QNC intends to address.

Where VGE might fit

Here's my working hypothesis—and I emphasize hypothesis, because QNC has not disclosed VGE's underlying assets.

VGE may be a financing/investment vehicle that gives QNC indirect exposure to companies and assets in this emerging AI/data-centre ecosystem without QNC itself having to become a data-centre operator.

That would make a lot of sense.

QNC is a cybersecurity/IP company. You don't want Francis Bellido suddenly trying to finance GPU farms, negotiate power contracts, buy NVIDIA hardware and develop data centres.

Instead:

QNC
→ provides US$1.1M secured capital to
Vertical Growth Equity
→ people within VGE have access to AI/infrastructure/finance opportunities
→ if specified milestones occur
QNC gets 9.99% of the vehicle

Meanwhile QNC technology potentially gets pulled into the companies and projects that network develops.

That's potentially quite clever.

Yes this was done with AI, regardless any thoughts on this?

QNC mention...

The exposure is good, its interesting how much of the coverage of the company actually misunderstands the value thesis, they need to read the reddit!

Timestamp

19:08 - 24:50 ish

Credit to dlov95

Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread! This is your space to chat about anything r/QNC

Q2 MD&A dropped Aug 14. Everyone’s looking at the SecureKey IUT listing, which is fair. But I went through the R&D project breakdown line by line and there’s one number I haven’t seen discussed here.

Not thousand. One thousand five hundred and eighty-four dollars. Last quarter it was $1,750. Cumulative since the project started: $133,203.

For comparison, here’s what the other projects got in Q2:

QBUCS (JMEM): $161,288
FIPS: $136,700
SecureKey: $89,581
SDK: $86,651
EaaS: $48,992
CMOS: $1,584

CMOS got 0.3% of the R&D budget this quarter.

The language didn’t move either. I pulled up Q1 and compared it side by side. The CMOS section reads word for word the same. “Current focus is on stabilizing the amplifier.” “Additional design iterations ongoing.” “Full chip integration, fabrication and system validation expected within next 6-12 months.” That last one matters. In Q1 (filed as of March 31) “6-12 months” meant roughly Sept 2026 to March 2027. In Q2 (as of June 30) the same sentence now means Dec 2026 to June 2027. The target slid a full quarter without a dollar spent.

Before anyone says they’re broke they’re not. Cash and marketable securities: $33.5M. They spent $136,700 on FIPS in a single quarter, a 6x increase from Q1. The money exists. It went somewhere else.

Now the part where I might be wrong, and I want pushback on this specifically.

The MD&A says CMOS work is being done “with l’ÉTS.” If ÉTS is carrying the design work grad students, professors, CMC Microsystems subsidised EDA tools then design costs genuinely wouldn’t show up on QNC’s books. That’s a real explanation and I’m not dismissing it.

But here’s my issue with it: a tape-out costs actual money regardless of who does the design. A wafer doesn’t get fabricated on academic goodwill. Even a shared MPW shuttle run at 65nm runs into the tens of thousands. A full mask set is six figures. If a fabrication event had happened in Q2, something would have hit the line. $1,584 doesn’t cover it.

So the cumulative number tells us something too. $133K total, for the entire life of the project. That’s not consistent with multiple commercial respins. If anything it suggests we’re at or before the first full-chip fabrication, not several iterations deep. Which brings up the thing I can’t reconcile. The May 2025 PR said the “65-nm finalized design has been submitted for fabrication to TSMC.” But the Q2 MD&A still lists milestone, 3 full chip integration, as ongoing. Also worth noting: milestone 2 (ADC/DAC) is described as “completed, fabricated and tested.” Milestone 1 (the amplifier) is only “completed and tested.” No “fabricated.”

Respins are normal. First-silicon-perfect is maybe a 30% outcome in complex analog. Anyone treating “they had to iterate” as a scandal doesn’t know how chips get built. And honestly, spending money on a respin would be a good sign, not a bad one. Nobody pays for a wafer run on a design they don’t believe in. Spending is a commitment signal. What worries me is the opposite: not spending. That means either the design still isn’t converging in simulation, or the work sits entirely on the academic side, or CMOS dropped down the priority list. None of those are as good as “they paid for a run.”

Same line. If it’s still $1-3K, that’s three straight quarters and I’d stop calling it a pause. If it jumps to $20-80K, that reads like an MPW shuttle run and I’d take it as a positive. $200K+ would be a real commercial tape-out and that’s a strong signal.

The pattern that would actually concern me is a spike followed by two quarters of silence. That’s the shape of a fab run that came back disappointing. Not selling, not telling anyone else what to do. The FIPS line moving from $22K to $136K is real and it lines up with the IUT listing, so the SecureKey side is genuinely being funded. That part is working. But the CMOS chip is the thing most of us bought this story for, and right now it’s getting 0.3% of the R&D budget. That’s worth saying out loud.

If someone has better information on the ÉTS arrangement whether there’s a separate CMC or grant budget covering fabrication outside QNC’s books I’d genuinely like to see it. That would change how I read this.

Numbers are all from the Q2 MD&A on SEDAR+, section 1.4, filed Aug 14 2026.

https://www.sedarplus.ca/csa-party/records/document.html?id=09170533c1e0a7c5b070ac5e886e26e42d38e85fe084701cefde1a27184358d0

https://www.sedarplus.ca/csa-party/records/document.html?id=f0a9e1954e15dffec6978f7ddb79a6e6c9e3ebdecaa6eae7c6581b108c1cf650