Quantum-Safe / Post-Quantum Cryptography

01 Quantum Inc reported cash usage of $450,000 for the quarter despite significantly ramped-up research and development and marketing spending, leaving it with approximately $2.5 million in cash and zero debt. Recurring revenue from partner royalties, including Hitachi, has begun accumulating and was described as growing slowly but surely, while the absence of one-time engineering fees that were collected in previous quarters weighed on revenue comparisons. The company received $22.5 million in qONE tokens plus a cash development fee for the qLABS Foundation quantum-safe crypto vault, and Chief Executive Andrew Cheung pegged the annual recurring revenue opportunity for its IronCAP XMail product at $2.6 billion, based on 10% of roughly 730 million business email addresses at $3 per month. Cheung said the AI marketplace is expected around the second quarter of 2027, and he cited an independent Carleton University evaluation confirming that the Quantum AI Wrapper performs AI inference in encrypted form at acceptable efficiency. He also said qLABS Foundation is preparing a Mythos Challenge that will load approximately $100,000 worth of qONE tokens into the qVAULT, publish the private key, and invite crypto hackers to breach it over 30 days.

Lattice Semiconductor announced the Lattice Mach-N2 FPGA family, extending its secure control FPGA leadership with devices built for system control and security in modern infrastructure. The family is built on the Lattice Nexus 2 small FPGA platform and combines integrated flash, a hardware Root of Trust, and CNSA 2.0-compliant post-quantum cryptography with crypto agility. Mach-N2 delivers up to 2X greater logic density for advanced system control functions, enhanced SERDES bandwidth for direct connectivity to modern System on Chips and processors, and up to 16 Gbps SERDES with PCIe 4.0 and 10G Ethernet. Its security suite includes ML-DSA, LMS, and XMSS for authentication, ML-KEM for key exchange, PUF-derived device identity with DICE and SPDM attestation, and classical cryptography including AES-256-GCM, ECC 521-bit, and RSA 4096-bit APIs. On-chip non-volatile flash blocks external access to the configuration bitstream and User Flash Memory, and a 220k system logic cell device fully configures in under 30 milliseconds, with up to three stored configuration images for fault recovery. Esam Elashmawi, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, said Mach-N2 represents a significant step forward in logic density and bandwidth while adding the most complete post-quantum security suite in its class for long-lifecycle systems.

Oracle introduced Java 27 with advanced post-quantum cryptography and ecosystem updates on 15 September 2026. The release includes Project Valhalla features and Helidon 27 support aimed at raising performance and developer productivity. Separately, Quorum Health selected Oracle Health's AI-driven platform as its standard for clinical and operational systems across its hospital network. Oracle said the combination pushes its AI story deeper into security-focused software and healthcare tools, and investors should watch for Java 27 uptake on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and measurable Quorum Health deployment milestones in coming earnings updates.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin on September 10 published on X a technical proposal called EIP-8288 (Recursive STARK mempool) that would make quantum-resistant signatures and privacy features available at low cost. The proposal uses a mechanism called Recursive STARK to verify large numbers of signatures and proofs together, reducing the need to process large amounts of data directly on Ethereum, and is positioned as the next stage of Frame Transactions, the new transaction scheme he has proposed previously. Currently, quantum-resistant private transactions require about 10 million gas, but using EIP-8288 could bring this down to roughly tens of thousands of gas, a reduction of more than 99% by simple calculation. It would also make various types of cryptographic signatures and proofs easier to use, and is expected to lead to privacy features that allow transactions to be processed without disclosing their contents more than necessary. EIP-8288 is currently at the draft stage and its adoption has not been decided, and Buterin explained that he hopes it will be adopted in the future network upgrade I-star.

US blockchain company Eigen Labs published research on the paper preprint site arXiv on September 10 showing that the amount of computation needed to break ECDSA, the cryptographic scheme used by Bitcoin and Ethereum, with a quantum computer is less than previously assumed. The research team optimized the "point addition" operation, which is unavoidable in cryptographic cracking calculations, so that it can be executed with 1,151 logical qubits, the basic unit close to a quantum computer's working memory, and also held the number of "Toffoli gate" operations, among the heaviest computational loads, to about 1.3 million. The resource metric combining qubit count and operation count came in more than 50% lower than the circuit value presented in March 2026 by Google Quantum AI, Google's quantum computing division, but the two differ in calculation methods and conditions, and the paper states that it "does not prove superiority or inferiority and is limited to a numerical comparison." More than 100 humans and AI agents took part in this research starting in May 2026, and in June the verification mechanism and scoreboard were made public so that anyone could submit improvement proposals. However, no quantum computer exists that can actually run this circuit, and the number of logical qubits IBM aims for by 2029 is said to be only 200.

XRP Ledger (XRPL) developers have joined the global technology race, officially aiming to make the ledger fully quantum-resistant by 2028. According to Vet, an XRPL Foundation contributor and validator on the decentralized Unique Node List (dUNL), major progress and the launch of a hybrid deployment of new security protocols are expected as early as 2027.

IonQ Chairman and CEO Niccolo de Masi said on CNBC that a 2,000-qubit quantum computer could break Bitcoin's elliptic-curve encryption in under 26 days, reiterating his expectation for "Q-Day" in 2028. He noted the capability "is not here yet" but argued the timeline is compressing, citing a four-order-of-magnitude drop in qubits needed to break encryption over the past 15 years. IonQ is accelerating its path to 10,000 qubits in 2027 and plans to commission 256-qubit systems that year, after reporting Q2 revenue of $80.1 million, up 287% year over year, with full-year 2026 guidance of $280 million to $290 million. De Masi acknowledged IonQ's dual role as a quantum security solution provider, having launched the ClavisXG Multiplex QKD product, while Bitcoin traded near $79,530 and Strategy resumed buying with a $370 million purchase. IonQ shares last traded at $39.17, down 11.84% over the past month.

IonQ used its 2026 Investor Day to unveil its Superion quantum-computing roadmap and detail its growth strategy following the SkyWater merger, reaffirming standalone 2026 revenue guidance of $280 million–$290 million and projecting combined 2026 revenue of $450 million–$460 million, which includes SkyWater's expected contribution of $240 million for the five months of ownership in 2026 after eliminating $70 million of intercompany revenue. The company expects initial Superion 256 systems to begin deploying at customer sites in early 2027, with a design that replaces laser-based qubit control with electronics integrated into the chip, called Electronic Qubit Control, to simplify manufacturing and support data-center deployment. SkyWater is already producing Superion chips by the wafer and will support dedicated photonics and superconducting quantum foundry platforms, with SkyWater CEO Thomas Sonderman noting thousands of quantum wafers running through its fabrication operations, about one-third tied to IonQ, and nine quantum customers following the announcement of Qolab as a customer. IonQ also announced a major agreement with Congruity360 for an enterprise rollout of quantum security in the U.S., described as the largest deal of its kind in the country, and highlighted progress in networking and sensing, including a photonic quantum interconnect exceeding one kilohertz and a hybrid quantum-classical workflow using synthetic aperture radar data.

The protocol subgroup of the Ethereum Foundation has published a priority list for 62 Ethereum improvement proposals for the upcoming Hegotá upgrade, aiming for quantum technology resistance by December 2029, with two S-tier proposals that must be delivered: FOCIL (EIP-7805) in the consensus layer, which will enhance censorship resistance, and Frame Transactions (EIP-8141) in the execution layer, which will make Account Abstraction a native feature of Ethereum, preparing for the post-quantum era. A-tier proposals will be bundled with the main ones, while 28 proposals were rejected for inclusion in the upgrade. The EF Protocol group has also set a "north star" for Ethereum L1 to be quantum-resistant across all three layers by December 2029, aligning with the goals of Google, Cloudflare, and Microsoft, assuming that Q-day could occur as early as 2030, and the 2029 deadline will be treated as a non-negotiable commitment until January 2027. Achieving this goal requires an average cadence of 7.2 months per fork, starting with the delivery of Glamsterdam in Q4 2026, and forks will overlap, with Hegotá being delivered while the specifications for I* are maturing, and research for J* through L* must proceed in parallel.

Eli Ben-Sasson, co-founder and CEO of blockchain development firm StarkWare, warned in an X post on August 27 that following the first quantum-resistant transaction on Bitcoin, preparations for the threat of quantum computers are "far from sufficient." If a sufficiently powerful quantum computer becomes practical, the current signature scheme used in Bitcoin could be at risk of having private keys derived from public keys. Ben-Sasson emphasized that this achievement does not mean Bitcoin is adequately protected against quantum threats, and stressed the need for serious measures, including a soft fork, to avoid a catastrophe, saying "there is still time." StarkWare develops Ethereum layer-2 solutions such as Starknet, and according to official information, has a team of about 220 people and has raised $250 million (approximately 40 billion yen, at an exchange rate of 160 yen per dollar). On August 26, the company announced that the first Bitcoin transaction resistant to quantum computer attacks was successfully executed on the mainnet. The method used, called "Quantum Safe Bitcoin (QSB)," was proposed by the company's Avihu Levy in April, and it enables quantum-resistant transactions without changing Bitcoin's consensus rules. This was the first instance of such a transaction on the mainnet. However, QSB does not make Bitcoin itself quantum-resistant, and StarkWare also indicated that while this success applies to a specific transaction, a soft fork would be more desirable in the long term.

Investment bank Bernstein released a major report forecasting Bitcoin's rise to $150,000 by mid-2027 and $300,000 by 2029, driven by the sovereign debt crisis and institutional demand. The report highlights that reaching the higher target is contingent on solving quantum computing threats to Bitcoin's cryptography. Bernstein's analysts emphasize that institutional adoption and macroeconomic factors will fuel the rally, but the quantum problem remains a critical risk. The forecast underscores growing confidence in Bitcoin as a hedge against fiat currency devaluation.

Quantum X Labs Inc. has announced the launch of Qatacomb, a new research initiative through its QuantumQ Security operation to explore quantum-native approaches to protecting sensitive information. The program will investigate security architectures that combine efficient access for authorized users with security properties rooted in quantum physics, and will include theoretical validation, simulation, and proof-of-concept testing on quantum hardware. The company cites a growing strategic need as quantum computing reshapes cybersecurity, with the global quantum security market projected to grow from approximately $2.5 billion in 2026 to approximately $9.8 billion by 2030, a compound annual growth rate of about 40%. Prof. Nir Sharon, Chief Technology Scientist, emphasized the goal of making quantum physics an integral part of the protection architecture itself. The initiative expands Quantum X Labs' research into quantum security, complementing its work in quantum computing, software, simulation, and sensing.

Ethereum's developer team submitted a new deposit contract proposal to the EIP repository on GitHub on the 24th, designed to prepare for the risk of signature decryption by future quantum computers. The proposal is registered under the provisional number EIP9999 and adopts a mechanism that specifies a scheme identifier for each deposit, with a design capable of handling variable-length public keys and authentication information. The contract's state is managed in three stages: inactive, active, and deprecated, and in the final stage it unilaterally stops accepting new BLS-based registrations. The proposal is in draft stage, and the formal EIP number and implementation schedule are undecided.

Banks and financial regulators in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia have joined a pilot project to test quantum-resistant infrastructure for digital asset wallets and blockchain transfers. The Responsible Fintech Institution, or RFI, and Safeheron, a crypto custody infrastructure provider, announced the project on Monday. It uses a multi-party computation protocol supporting ML-DSA-65, a post-quantum digital signature standard published by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, on the quantum-resistant NEAR test network. Participating regulators include Abu Dhabi Global Market, Bhutan's Gelephu Financial Services Authority, and the Malta Financial Services Authority, while Bison Bank and DK Bank joined as financial institutions. The banks will test wallet creation and transfers in a shared application environment, while regulators will observe in the first phase and join regulatory workstreams later. Organizers plan to publish a white paper covering the research, protocol design, and test results, and will eventually open-source the underlying technology. The pilot comes as financial regulators prepare for quantum computers that could break public-key cryptography. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority aims to make Hong Kong's banking sector fully prepared for quantum-related security risks by 2030, while a 2025 Bank for International Settlements report urged financial institutions to begin migrating to post-quantum innovations in a coordinated and phased manner.

BTQ Technologies Corp announced key milestones across its quantum-safe portfolio during its first quarter 2026 earnings call, including sending final design files for its QSIM chip to manufacturing partner ICTK with tape-out scheduled for August 2026 and first silicon samples expected in Q1 2027. The QSIM product achieved a record-low footprint of less than 100,000 logic gate equivalents for core post-quantum algorithms, four times smaller than the nearest open-source side-channel protected PQC engine. The company's QSSN was selected as the core post-quantum security infrastructure for Korea's first bank-led Korean Won stablecoin pilot, and its Denel pilot processed thousands of transactions with a 100% success rate and 0% fallback rate. Bitcoin Quantum, the quantum-safe Bitcoin fork, is on track for a mid-2026 mainnet launch with over 350,000 blocks mined and more than 150 open-source contributors. BTQ reported $12 million in liquidity and noted regulatory tailwinds from the upcoming CNSA 2.0 standard and EU Cyber Resilience Act, while acknowledging uncertainty around mass commercialization timelines and potential dilution from its base shelf.

Allot Ltd. announced it is a founding member and Chair of a new Post-Quantum Communications Consortium dedicated to developing technologies that will secure communications networks and protect data against future quantum computing threats. Supported by the Israel Innovation Authority's Technological Infrastructure Division, the consortium includes Allot, Ceragon, Classiq, Gilat Satellite Networks, Heqa, Elta, NVIDIA, RAD, and Ribbon, along with academic partners Bar-Ilan University, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Open University of Israel, the Technion, and the University of Haifa. The consortium will develop and evaluate technologies based on Post-Quantum Cryptography, Quantum Key Distribution, and hybrid approaches, addressing multiple network layers including optical, Ethernet, IP, mobile, satellite, data center, and internet-based communications. Dr. Yaakov Stein, VP CTO of Allot and Chair of the Consortium Board, said the transition to quantum-safe communications is one of the most important cybersecurity challenges facing the world today.

Advances in quantum computing from Google and IBM are bringing the Q-Day threat to Bitcoin closer to reality, with the potential to crack high-risk wallets worth more than 452 billion dollars. A Google white paper in March 2026 indicated that quantum computers could break encryption systems faster than expected, while security researcher Justin Drake estimates a 10 percent chance that private keys could be recovered from exposed public keys by 2032. Italian researcher Giancarlo Lelli successfully cracked a weakened elliptic curve key in April 2026, and the U.S. government announced a 2 billion dollar investment to develop quantum technology in May 2026. Several BIP proposals, such as BIP-360 and BIP-361, have been put forward to prepare the network, but upgrades take a long time and require community consensus, while abandoned coins worth around 180 billion dollars, including roughly 1 million Satoshi-era Bitcoin, remain at high risk.

The Ethereum Foundation is stepping back from using the Poseidon hash function in its planned post-quantum architecture, according to Justin Drake, a researcher at the foundation, turning instead to widely accepted and robust alternatives such as SHA or BLAKE. Drake said advances in SNARKs technology have made traditional hash functions efficient enough to replace Poseidon in those planned systems, with a production-ready leanVM targeted for 2027, followed by deployment across Ethereum's consensus layer, data layer, and execution layer in 2028. Sreeram Kannan, founder and chief executive officer of Eigen Labs, said systems based on established hash functions have fewer potential attack vectors than other post-quantum approaches and can be adopted more quickly because they have been thoroughly scrutinized for many years.

Vitalik Buterin has unveiled a new Ethereum roadmap aimed at preparing for the era of quantum computing and AI, with a focus on privacy as a core feature. The roadmap includes native rollups, Verkle trees, STARKs, and post-quantum technologies to enhance network efficiency and security. This announcement marks a significant step in modernizing Ethereum to meet future technological challenges.

Christopher Smith, founder of Quantus Network, warns that the first quantum attack on cryptocurrencies could occur without any trace of a breach, making it extremely difficult to detect. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could compute private keys from public keys visible on the blockchain without needing to penetrate the internal systems of wallets or exchanges. Smith estimates a 50-50 chance of this happening by 2028, while researchers at Blockchain Capital view the early 2030s as almost certain. The first target may not be Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin, but rather Tether's token minting keys or exchange hot wallets, which would trigger fewer alarms. Advances in quantum algorithms and AI are accelerating the timeline for transitioning to a post-quantum era, with Google projecting this by 2029.

US lawmakers from both parties are seeking to increase annual military spending on quantum computing by 68% to $567 million as part of defense funding legislation expected to be debated in the House later this year. A similar effort is underway in the Senate, building on Trump administration moves including a May announcement of more than $2 billion in direct federal investments and a June executive order to advance quantum research and protect federal IT systems from quantum-based cyberattacks. The push comes as China has established a $10 billion National Laboratory for Quantum Information Sciences, while Europe and the UK combined have committed nearly three times as much public money as the US, according to industry consultancy QBN. Despite recent breakthroughs, investor skepticism persists, with shares of pure-play quantum firms like D-Wave Quantum Inc., Infleqtion Inc., and Rigetti Computing Inc. falling sharply this year, though IonQ Inc. raised its full-year revenue forecast and recouped most losses after closing its $1.8 billion acquisition of SkyWater Technology Inc. The four pure-play quantum companies slated for Commerce Department grants have doubled their annual lobbying spending to $2.2 million, and the White House in July hosted a quantum tech summit with industry leaders.

Sui is integrating two NIST-approved quantum-resistant signature schemes to protect blockchain accounts from the threat of quantum computers. The network will add ML-DSA-65 as a native protocol signature for general accounts, and the hash-based SLH-DSA-SHA2-128s inside Move smart contracts for high-value vaults. Users can migrate to quantum-safe keys using their original recovery phrase without creating a new account. Quantum-safe vaults are targeted for mainnet this year, while native ML-DSA-65 accounts are planned for testnet by the end of 2026 and mainnet in the first quarter of 2027.

Fundstrat cofounder Tom Lee warned that quantum computers could crack Bitcoin as early as 2028–2029. Citing Google research, Lee claimed that modern computing technologies could render Bitcoin's existing protection obsolete, while the crypto community still lacks a unified rescue plan.

Quantum Corridor, Ciena, and Toshiba have completed the world’s first trial of 1.6 Tb/s quantum-safe optical encryption on a live commercial network. The trial, conducted on Quantum Corridor’s production network between Chicago and Hammond, Indiana, validated encrypted connectivity using Ciena’s Waveserver platform powered by WaveLogic 6 Extreme, alongside existing WaveLogic 5 Extreme 800G encrypted traffic on the same photonic line system. It demonstrated interworking with Toshiba’s quantum key distribution servers, which supply quantum-generated keys to Ciena’s optical encryption systems, and supported a hybrid security approach combining NIST-certified post-quantum cryptography algorithms with quantum key distribution. The solution gives network operators flexibility to mitigate threats from quantum computers, including harvest now, decrypt later attacks, and offers a practical migration path without wholesale infrastructure replacement. The milestone underscores how organizations can immediately protect critical in-flight data while preparing for the quantum era.

Galaxy Digital has pledged up to $5 million to defend Bitcoin against future quantum computers that could crack its digital signature algorithm. The threat centers on the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm used to prove ownership, which a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could exploit to recover private keys from public wallet details. About a third of all Bitcoin already has its public key exposed on the chain, and estimates for when such a computer might exist range from five to 40 years. The main obstacles to mitigating the threat are social and organizational, as Bitcoin Improvement Proposals like BIP-360 and the controversial BIP-361 face challenges in achieving developer consensus.

A group of leading financial institutions and crypto companies, including BlackRock, Coinbase Global, and Strategy, have launched the Bitcoin Security Consortium with plans to spend at least $15 million over the next three years to bolster the Bitcoin blockchain's resilience against quantum computing and artificial intelligence threats. The consortium aims to address concerns raised by Alphabet researchers earlier this year, who warned that quantum computers could eventually break Bitcoin's cryptography and put 6.7 million BTC at risk. While some experts like Cathie Wood of Ark Invest believe the quantum threat is still years away, the consortium also faces emerging AI risks, as demonstrated by Anthropic's Claude model cracking a post-quantum signature algorithm. The initiative is seen as a bullish development for Bitcoin, which has never had its blockchain directly compromised.

Researchers from IBM and the University of Chicago announced on July 30 that they have demonstrated reliable quantum advantage using 70 logical qubits and a new error correction method. They completed a calculation that is practically impossible with conventional simulation techniques in about 15 minutes, and also provided statistical evidence showing the accuracy of the results. Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research, said, "We are now firmly in the era of quantum advantage." However, breaking Bitcoin's elliptic curve cryptography would require thousands of fault-tolerant logical qubits, a significant gap from the 70 achieved here. IBM aims to perform 100 million operations with 200 logical qubits by 2029, while on the Bitcoin side, an improvement proposal called BIP-360 to introduce quantum computer resistance was proposed in February 2026.

Cisco has announced a series of new integrations and partnerships aimed at embedding AI, advanced security, and quantum-safe capabilities across its collaboration, networking, and contact center offerings. Among the most notable is a partnership with Tech Mahindra around Cisco Secure Access, which reinforces Cisco's push to embed AI into cloud-delivered security through a new Security Service Edge offering. The company has also begun testing Aliro's quantum networking software and joined Nvidia's Open Secure AI Alliance to bolster open-source AI cybersecurity. Additional integrations were announced with Intrado Life & Safety and SuccessKPI for Cisco's Webex and security platforms. These moves support Cisco's catalyst around AI-driven security differentiation but do not fundamentally change near-term risks tied to hyperscaler AI spending volatility.

The University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce has launched the UTCC Post-Quantum Cryptography Transition Center of Excellence, or UTCC PQC-X, the first industry-driven center of its kind in Thailand. It signed a memorandum of understanding with three global technology partners—Yip In Tsoi Next Company Limited, i-Sprint Innovations, and Utimaco—on Friday, July 24, 2026. Associate Professor Dr. Thanawat Phonwichai, the university president, stated that the center will help Thai organizations build cryptographic agility to counter threats from quantum computers, which could decrypt critical data in the near future. Assistant Professor Dr. Supachet Innet, the center's director, revealed that the center will drive four main missions: research and innovation aligned with international standards, workforce development, business consulting, and building collaborative networks. It has a three-phase plan, from setting up a testing laboratory and launching training courses to offering full consulting services and expanding networks regionally. Dr. Manisara Barameechai, dean of the Faculty of Engineering, said the faculty will serve as a bridge connecting knowledge to real-world applications. The center is expected to reduce enterprise-level risks, establish industry standards, and strengthen the country's cybersecurity resilience.

Strategy has joined BlackRock, Coinbase, and other industry players to form the Bitcoin Security Consortium, which is focused on strengthening Bitcoin against potential quantum computing threats. Members have committed a combined US$15 million to support research and development of quantum resistant security measures. The consortium includes Fidelity Digital Assets, and each member chooses how to allocate its share of the funding. The move highlights Strategy's deepening ties to Bitcoin infrastructure beyond its balance sheet holdings.

VCI Global Limited has launched VGAIN Cloud, a sovereign AI cloud platform with post-quantum-ready encryption, through its subsidiary V Gallant. The first phase involves a planned US$6 million rollout of NVIDIA Blackwell-class GPU and Intel-powered CPU systems in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur, with architecture designed to scale to up to 1,000 GPUs. The initial flagship facility in Selangor will serve as a commercial hub, with subsequent expansion across Kuala Lumpur via a distributed AI compute pod strategy. The rollout, expected to take approximately 18 months, is being undertaken in partnership with Omnia Nexus Group and will support enterprise AI applications such as agentic AI, private large language models, and confidential data processing. VCI Global believes the platform positions V Gallant to pursue opportunities in AI compute, sovereign cloud infrastructure, and enterprise AI services across Malaysia and Southeast Asia.

Galaxy, a crypto-focused financial services firm, has launched the Galaxy Bitcoin Quantum Readiness Initiative to prepare for future risks posed by quantum computers, with up to $5 million in grants available. The initiative is built on three pillars: a developer grant program, a research and outreach program, and a Quantum Advisory Council. It will support the implementation and verification of quantum-resistant transaction methods, the adoption of quantum-resistant signature schemes, and the development of migration tools. Applications opened at the time of the announcement, and grants will be awarded on a milestone basis after individual review. Alex Thorn, Head of Firmwide Research, said the goal is to bridge the gap between the rapidly advancing quantum computing field and the Bitcoin development space, which is just beginning to address quantum-resistant cryptography. He called on institutions and Bitcoin stakeholders to co-fund and collaborate on research.