Global #PQC Sector Readiness: A Map of Structural Unpreparedness

This heatmap is not a prediction and it’s not a narrative.

It’s an empirical synthesis of the global regulatory landscape, industry spending patterns, and cryptographic‑standards adoption as of early 2026.

Classification is based on observable regulatory mandates, sector migration programmes, and real‑world cryptographic infrastructure dependencies.

How the RAG status is determined

🔹 Mandates - Is there a legal or regulatory requirement to migrate to PQC?

🔹 Interoperability - Does the sector depend on legacy protocols (TLS, VPNs, PKI stacks) that cannot be upgraded quickly?

🔹 Data Longevity - Will the data still be sensitive when a cryptographically relevant quantum computer exists?

What the data shows

🏥 Healthcare & Pharma

Critical exposure in four of six regions.

Clinical data, research pipelines, and patient records remain dependent on legacy cryptography with no mandated migration path.

⚖️ Legal & Professional Services

Red almost everywhere.

The global confidentiality backbone is structurally unprepared, with long‑lived data and no regulatory pressure to modernise.

🏭 Manufacturing & Auto

The same red clustering.

OT, supply chain telemetry, and design IP remain unprotected across most regions.

💳 Financial Services

A sector that should be leading - yet yellow or red outside North America and Europe.

Even there, the status is mixed.

☁️ IT & Cloud

The only private‑sector domain with pockets of green - and only in North America, Europe, and parts of Asia.

Everywhere else: red.

The contrast is stark

🛡️ Government & Defence is the only sector consistently green across major regions.

They treated PQC as a national‑security dependency years ago.

The private sector did not.

The result is a global map of structural unpreparedness - a cryptographic debt crisis already visible in the data.

The first step

It is not a roadmap or a vendor conversation.

It is a transformation of your cryptographic inventory -

the one artefact every organisation should already have and almost none do.

If your sector is red or yellow on this map, the exposure is not abstract.

It is operational, measurable, and already exploitable under Harvest‑Now‑Decrypt‑Later models.

Where does your organisation sit on this map - and who is accountable for closing the gap?