Sometime in the next several years, the encryption that protects bank transfers, medical records and state secrets is expected to start failing. Large quantum computers, still being built, will eventually unravel the math that keeps that data private far faster than any machine today.
In Singapore, two brothers have built a company on a bet about how to stop them.
Lim Meng Liang, 38, and his older brother Ken Lin, 45, founded Aires Applied Quantum Technology in 2023 to sell encryption they argue will hold up even against quantum attacks. Their wager rests on an unusual foundation: a class of pure-mathematics problems that no algorithm can ever fully solve, The Straits Times reported.
Lim, a National University of Singapore applied mathematics graduate who also runs his own investment firm, specializes in Diophantine equations, polynomial equations for which mathematicians search for whole-number solutions.
Contrary to how they are often described, these are not simply equations "without solutions." Their power comes from a deeper property: no general method can decide whether an arbitrary Diophantine equation has integer solutions at all, a problem essentially equivalent to the unsolvable halting problem.
