--- eventsindex_id: "EI-07115" slug: pqc-conference-amsterdam-2026 title: "Post-Quantum Cryptography Conference 2026" title_alt: ["Post-Quantum Cryptography Conference Amsterdam 2026", "PQC Conference Amsterdam 2026", "PKI Consortium PQC Conference"] canonical_url: "https://eventsindex.org/events/pqc-conference-amsterdam-2026.html" next_edition_year: 2026 date_start: 2026-12-01 date_end: 2026-12-03 venue: "Meervaart" city: "Amsterdam" country: "Netherlands" organiser: "PKI Consortium" organiser_url: "https://pkic.org" b2b: true vector: sector: [quantum-tech] audience: [industry, government, corporate] format: [conference] purpose: [content, education, networking] geography_scope: [Netherlands] season: winter meta_description: "Post-Quantum Cryptography Conference, 1-3 December 2026 at Meervaart Amsterdam: free hybrid event on NIST PQC migration, run by the PKI Consortium." editorial_take: "The rest of the quantum calendar sells a future capability; this one hands enterprise security teams a deadline, which is why the in-person seats went before the programme was final." generated_by: "claude-max-cowork" last_verified: "2026-08-18" variables_filled: 18/58 language: "en" schema_version: "v6.0" --- # Post-Quantum Cryptography Conference 2026 > *A free, hybrid conference on enterprise migration to post-quantum cryptography, 1 to 3 December 2026 at Meervaart in Amsterdam. Organised by the non-profit PKI Consortium, it runs a Strategic track for C-suite, risk officers and programme leads alongside a Technical track for architects and DevOps teams. It is the fifth edition of a series that has previously run in Ottawa, Amsterdam, Austin and Kuala Lumpur.* --- ## Quick Facts | DATES | VENUE | ORGANISER | ATTENDANCE | |---|---|---|---| | **1 - 3 December 2026** | **Meervaart** | **PKI Consortium** | **Free, in person and virtual** | | 3 days, 5th edition of the series | Amsterdam, Netherlands | Non-profit membership body | In-person places waitlisted, virtual open | ## Definition The Post-Quantum Cryptography Conference is a three-day event on the practical migration of enterprise systems to post-quantum cryptography, the family of algorithms designed to withstand attack by a future large-scale quantum computer. It is organised by the PKI Consortium, a non-profit membership body whose members include certificate authorities, hardware security module makers and enterprise security suppliers, and it is free to attend both in person and online. The 2026 edition runs 1 to 3 December at Meervaart in Amsterdam and is the fifth in a series that began in Ottawa in 2023. Its subject is deployment rather than discovery: rolling out the NIST-standardised algorithms (ML-KEM, ML-DSA and SLH-DSA), building crypto-agility into existing systems, automating certificate estates, and running hybrid classical/PQC TLS during the transition. ## A migration conference, not a quantum computing conference Most of the quantum-tech calendar is about building quantum computers. This event is about what every other organisation has to do because they are being built. Nothing on the programme depends on a working cryptographically relevant quantum machine existing yet: the risk model is harvest-now-decrypt-later, the standards are already published, and the work in question is inventory, sequencing and replacement across systems that were never designed to have their cryptography swapped out. That reframing is the reason the room looks different from the rest of the vertical. Attendees are enterprise security architects, PKI owners, compliance leads and vendor engineers rather than physicists. ## Two tracks, two audiences The organiser splits the programme into two parallel tracks aimed at distinct roles. The split is unusually explicit, and it is the clearest guide to whether the event is worth your time. | | Strategic track | Technical track | |---|---|---| | Who it is for | C-suite, risk officers, programme and PMO leads | Security architects, cryptography engineers, DevOps and platform teams | | The question it answers | When do we have to migrate, and what does it cost? | How do we change algorithms without breaking production? | | Topics named by the organiser | Regulatory compliance under NIS2 and DORA, budget and vendor assessment, migration timelines | CI/CD crypto-agility, certificate automation, PQC tooling | | Standards touchpoint | Board-level reporting on adoption of the NIST PQC standards | Deployment of ML-KEM, ML-DSA and SLH-DSA, hybrid classical/PQC TLS | ## The 2026 edition: back to Amsterdam Amsterdam hosted the second edition of this series in 2023, and the conference returns there for its fifth. The series has deliberately moved between continents rather than settling in one city, which has kept the regulatory content varied: a European edition puts NIS2 and DORA at the centre of the Strategic track in a way a North American or Asian edition does not. | When | Where | |---|---| | 2023 | Ottawa, Canada | | 2023 | Amsterdam, Netherlands | | January 2025 | Austin, United States | | October 2025 | Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia | | 1 - 3 December 2026 | Amsterdam, Netherlands | ## What the programme covers The recurring subject areas across the three days are migration to post-quantum cryptography at enterprise scale, the NIST PQC standards and their deployment (ML-KEM, ML-DSA, SLH-DSA), crypto-agility as an engineering property rather than a policy statement, compliance obligations under NIS2 and DORA, certificate lifecycle automation, and hybrid classical/PQC TLS as the transitional deployment pattern. ## Who sponsors it, and why the list is worth reading For a free conference, the sponsor list is the pricing signal. It is dominated by the suppliers an enterprise will actually have to buy from or configure during a PQC migration: certificate authorities, HSM vendors and certificate lifecycle management platforms. Anyone using the event as a market survey can treat the tiers below as a starting shortlist. | Tier | Named companies | |---|---| | Diamond | IBM | | Platinum | Crypto4A, Cryptomathic, Keyfactor, SSL.com, Entrust, HID Global, Utimaco | | Also present, tier not disclosed | DigiCert, Sectigo | ## Where it sits on the European quantum calendar Post-quantum cryptography now appears on the agenda of several events in this vertical, but with different centres of gravity. Quantum Networks Summit 2026 in Paris covers quantum-safe networking from a telecom infrastructure angle, closer to carriers and QKD deployment. Quantum Infra Summit EU 2026 in Leuven treats PQC deployment as one component of a broader infrastructure programme. This conference is the one that takes the enterprise migration project itself as its whole subject, which makes it the natural pick for a CISO office or a PKI team with a mandate and a deadline, and a poor pick for anyone tracking quantum hardware progress. ## FAQ · Identity and audience ### Who actually attends the PQC Conference? Enterprise security architects, PKI and certificate estate owners, cryptography engineers, DevOps and platform teams, alongside C-suite sponsors, risk officers and programme managers who own the migration budget. Vendors in the certificate authority, HSM and certificate automation market attend both as sponsors and as speakers. ### Do I need a cryptography background to follow the programme? Not for the Strategic track, which is built for executives, risk and programme roles and is framed around timelines, compliance and vendor assessment. The Technical track assumes working knowledge of PKI, TLS and build pipelines. ### Is this a quantum computing event? Only indirectly. The threat model comes from quantum computing, but the content is applied cryptography and enterprise migration. There is no quantum hardware programme, and the standards discussed run on classical systems. ## The venue: Meervaart Meervaart is a theatre and conference venue in the west of Amsterdam. The organiser publishes the exact address and access details on the event page. Because the conference is run as a hybrid, attendance does not require travel to the Netherlands. ## The organiser: the PKI Consortium The PKI Consortium is a non-profit membership organisation working on public key infrastructure standards and practice, with a membership drawn from certificate authorities, hardware security module vendors and enterprise security suppliers. It runs the Post-Quantum Cryptography Conference series as a free event, funded by sponsorship rather than delegate fees, which is why the sponsor tiers are published and the ticket price is not. --- ## Editorial take *The rest of the quantum calendar sells a future capability; this one hands enterprise security teams a deadline, which is why the in-person seats went before the programme was final.* ## How to register and what it costs Registration is free, for both in-person and virtual attendance, through the event page on the PKI Consortium site. That makes it an outlier in this vertical, where most events are paid and in-person only: there is no delegate tier, no early-bird deadline and no academic rate to compare, because there is no fee at all. The trade-off is capacity. At the time of verification, in-person registration was reported full with a waitlist in operation, while virtual registration remained open. The practical advice is to secure a virtual place immediately and add your name to the in-person waitlist rather than treating the two as alternatives. ## FAQ · Access and practicalities ### Is the conference genuinely free? Yes. Both in-person and virtual attendance are free of charge. The event is funded through sponsorship by the vendors listed on the event page rather than through delegate fees. ### Can I still get an in-person place? Not directly, as things stood at last verification: in-person registration was reported full and a waitlist was operating. Registering for the waitlist and for virtual attendance at the same time is the safer route. ### What does virtual attendance give me? A place at the streamed programme, registered through the same event page. The organiser has not published which sessions are streamed or whether recordings are released afterwards, so check the event page close to the date if a specific session matters to you. ## First time at the PQC Conference? How to prepare - **Take the virtual place first, then join the in-person waitlist.** Virtual registration was still open at last check while in-person was full. Registering for both costs nothing and protects you if a seat is released. - **Choose your track before you book the time.** The Strategic and Technical tracks run in parallel for genuinely different roles. Sending one person to cover both is the most common way to get less out of this event than it offers. - **Arrive with your own certificate inventory in hand.** The Technical track is built around crypto-agility, certificate automation and PQC tooling, and the sessions are far more useful if you already know how many certificates and cryptographic dependencies you own. - **Read up on ML-KEM, ML-DSA and SLH-DSA beforehand.** The programme assumes the NIST standards as a starting point rather than explaining them from scratch, particularly in the Technical track. - **Bring the compliance question with you.** NIS2 and DORA are recurring reference points in the Strategic track, and the most productive corridor conversations tend to start from a specific regulatory obligation rather than a general interest. - **Treat the sponsor list as a vendor shortlist.** The certificate authorities, HSM makers and certificate automation vendors on the sponsor tiers are the same suppliers you will evaluate during a migration. Three days in the same building is a cheap way to run first-round conversations. ## Resources | Resource | URL | |---|---| | Official event page | https://pkic.org/events/2026/pqc-conference-amsterdam-nl/ | | Registration | https://pkic.org/events/2026/pqc-conference-amsterdam-nl/ | | Organiser (PKI Consortium) | https://pkic.org | | Programme | not disclosed | | LinkedIn | not disclosed | --- **Last verified:** 2026-08-18 **Next review:** 2026-09-17 **Notes:** Dates, venue, free hybrid format, two-track structure, themes and sponsor tiers sourced from the PKI Consortium event page. Attendance figure is not disclosed by the organiser. In-person registration was reported full with a waitlist at time of research; virtual registration open. Sponsor tiers listed as published at verification date and may change before the event. Session recording policy not published. **Variables:** 18/58 **Concept definition:** applicable