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PQC Coalition (PQCC)

The Post-Quantum Cryptography Coalition (PQCC) is an industry coalition convened by MITRE to drive broader understanding and adoption of post-quantum cryptography and the NIST standards behind it. It launched on September 26, 2023 with 6 founding members: MITRE, IBM Quantum, Microsoft, PQShield, SandboxAQ, and the University of Waterloo. Where the standards bodies write what the algorithms are, the coalition writes practitioner material about how to migrate to them, and its flagship PQC Migration Roadmap is one of the most useful free, vendor-neutral migration references an organization can hand a program lead.

The short version:

1. PQCC is an industry coalition rather than a standards body or regulator. It publishes guidance, tooling, and educational material; it sets no deadlines and certifies nothing.
2. Its stated mission is to drive progress toward broader understanding and public adoption of post-quantum cryptography and the associated NIST standards, and it scopes itself to classical quantum-resistant cryptography rather than quantum technologies like QKD.
3. The flagship artifact is the PQC Migration Roadmap (May 2025), a tailorable 4-stage guide running Preparation, Baseline Understanding, Planning and Execution, and Monitoring and Evaluation.
4. Earlier and companion outputs include a CBOM paper (September 2024), a PQC Inventory Workbook (June 2025), an international PQC requirements comparison (July 2025), and a monthly standardization-and-adoption heatmap.
5. Its 4 launch workstreams were migration-relevant standards, education and workforce material, open-source production-quality and side-channel-resistant code, and cryptographic agility.

Think of the ecosystem as a construction project. NIST engineered the new building materials, the regulators set the occupancy deadlines, and the coalition writes the contractor’s handbook: which order to do the work in, what to inventory before you start, and which tools other crews have already found reliable.

What is the PQC Coalition?

PQCC is a community of technology, research, and standards organizations that pools practitioner expertise around the migration itself. MITRE, a not-for-profit operator of U.S. federally funded research centers, convened it, and membership has grown past the founders to include firms like Comcast, CryptoNext Security, QuSecure, and SecureG, with an advisory board of academic cryptographers including Douglas Stebila and Jonathan Katz.

Its stated mission, in its own words, is to “drive progress toward broader understanding and public adoption of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) and the associated National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standards.” The coalition is explicit that its scope is classical cryptosystems with quantum-resistant security, which keeps its output aligned with the NIST algorithm standards rather than with quantum hardware.

At launch it organized around 4 priority workstreams: advancing standards relevant to PQC migration, creating technical materials for education and workforce development, producing and verifying open-source production-quality code (including side-channel-resistant implementations for industry verticals), and ensuring cryptographic agility.

Source: PQC Coalition, pqcc.org; MITRE, “Post-Quantum Cryptography Coalition Launches,” September 26, 2023, mitre.org; the same release as carried by founding member SandboxAQ, sandboxaq.com.

What has the coalition actually published?

The output that matters to a migration team is a small set of free, practical artifacts, and the publication order is worth knowing because the inventory work came first.

Artifact	Date	What it’s for
CBOM paper (“Transitioning to Quantum-Safe Cryptography”)	September 2024	The role and value of a cryptographic bill of materials in migration
PQC Migration Roadmap	May 2025	The flagship: a tailorable 4-stage migration guide for organizations of any size
PQC Inventory Workbook	June 2025	A working template for the cryptographic inventory the roadmap’s early stages require
International PQC Requirements	July 2025	A comparison of national PQC requirements across jurisdictions
Standardization and Adoption Heatmap	Monthly	A running read on where standards and adoption actually stand

The roadmap describes itself as “a comprehensive and tailorable guide designed to assist organizations of any size in navigating the complexities of PQC migration,” and its 4 stages (Preparation, Baseline Understanding, Planning and Execution, Monitoring and Evaluation) map cleanly onto the sequence this guide teaches in Start a Migration: name an owner, build the inventory, plan against data lifetimes, then govern the rollout.

Source: PQC Coalition, “Post-Quantum Cryptography Migration Roadmap,” May 2025, pqcc.org; resources index with publication dates, pqcc.org/resources.

How should you actually use PQCC material?

Use it as the free second opinion beside the government guidance, because the coalition’s material is practitioner-written and vendor-neutral in a space thick with product marketing.

1. The roadmap pairs with the official guidance. NIST’s migration project and the CISA/NSA/NIST quantum-readiness factsheet set the government frame; the PQCC roadmap turns the same sequence into a tailorable working document.
2. The inventory workbook is a real starting artifact. Teams that freeze at “build a cryptographic inventory” get further with a concrete workbook than a blank spreadsheet, and it feeds the CBOM work properly.
3. The heatmap answers the recurring board question. “Where is everyone else on this?” has a maintained, citable answer updated monthly.
4. Weigh the membership when reading product-adjacent output. Several members sell PQC products and services. The roadmap and workbook are vendor-neutral, and any specific tooling recommendation still goes through your own evaluation, per the standing rule that vendor claims get verified rather than inherited.

Common misconceptions

1. “PQCC is part of NIST.” It’s an independent industry coalition convened by MITRE. It supports adoption of the NIST standards and holds no standards-setting authority of its own.
2. “The coalition’s roadmap is a compliance requirement.” It’s free guidance. The binding deadlines live in the mandates: OMB memoranda, NSA CNSA 2.0, and the national timelines.
3. “Coalition membership means a vendor’s products are endorsed.” Membership is participation. The coalition doesn’t certify or endorse member products, and vendor capability claims still need independent verification.

Questions people ask

Who founded the PQC Coalition? MITRE convened it, and the 6 founding members announced on September 26, 2023 were MITRE, IBM Quantum, Microsoft, PQShield, SandboxAQ, and the University of Waterloo.

Is the PQC Migration Roadmap free? Yes. The roadmap, the inventory workbook, and the rest of the coalition’s published material are freely available on pqcc.org.

How is PQCC different from the PKI Consortium? PQCC is a migration-focused coalition convened by MITRE around the NIST standards; the PKI Consortium is a broader PKI industry association whose post-quantum work centers on its conference series and its vendor capabilities matrix. Their output is complementary rather than competing.

Does PQCC cover QKD or quantum hardware? Its scope note says the opposite: the coalition prioritizes classical cryptosystems with quantum-resistant security, which is the same lane as the NIST PQC standards.

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Everything here is the map, given freely. When your team needs the roadmap turned into your roadmap, sequenced against your own inventory, vendors, and deadlines, that’s the work I do.

Last verified 2026-07-26 · Updated 2026-08-25 · Maintained by Addie LaMarr, LaMarr Labs.