Merger completed & deal with Juniper Networks

Arqit Limited completed its merger with Centricus Acquisition Corp. on 9 September and has been renamed Arqit Quantum Inc. Its shares trade under the ticker symbol ARQQ and at their recent price of US$13.6 the group’s market capitalisation was US$1.5bn. Arqit’s Nasdaq presence and the cash received from the Centricus merger provide the basis to develop its proprietary quantum-based encryption offering.

And today Arqit Quantum Inc. has announced that it has signed a ‘Technology Alliance Partner Connect’ agreement with Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR market cap. US$9.1bn) to explore network security technology to provide protection from quantum-based security threats.

Demand for network security has never been more pressing given the ever-present and increasingly frequent threat of cyber-attack. Improved active authentication of devices in order to protect data from even a quantum-based attack requires the use of software-defined networking and improved cryptographic key exchanges.

It is worth noting that the market for data encryption is estimated by experts to reach c. US$198bn by 2024. Arqit itself has already signed over US$130m of contracts with telecoms, government, and defence firms, in addition to contracted proof-of-concept projects with major corporates.