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Forbes
11-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Samsung Galaxy Unpacked: Galaxy Z Foldables Finally Get Competitive
Samsung's head of device and mobile experience, TM Roh This week's Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event in Brooklyn saw the launch of the seventh generation of Samsung's Galaxy Z foldable smartphones. After years when we've seen Samsung fall behind in a market niche that it essentially created, the new Galaxy Z 7 series announced this week finally brings the company back into contention as a maker of cutting-edge foldable phones. While I try to maintain my objectivity as an analyst, it's fair to say that I am both one of Samsung's biggest fans and one of its biggest critics. As I said, Samsung in many ways created the foldable smartphone form factor with the Galaxy Z series, including the Z Fold and Z Flip. In 2019, the Galaxy Z Fold became the first commercially available foldable on the market, which was quickly followed by Huawei and many others. Samsung was also among the first to introduce a flip foldable; its first flip phone was announced in 2020, just before the Covid lockdowns. Samsung has iterated both of these products across several generations, but the company has ceded a lot of the market to the likes of Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and even Motorola. Now it's making a bid to regain its supremacy. (Note: Samsung is a client of my firm, Moor Insights & Strategy.) The Galaxy Z Fold7 — Bringing A Flagship 'Ultra' Model To Foldables The Galaxy Fold line is Samsung's premier foldable, with the biggest screens, fastest processors and now its slimmest design. I have long said that the Galaxy S25 Edge was an engineering exercise for the next generation of foldables, and I believe that assessment is validated in the Galaxy Z Fold7. While I personally don't think that phone thickness is the most important metric, it does matter when it comes to foldables since you need to fold the phone and double its thickness. The new Z Fold7 is 4.2mm when unfolded, which is not much thicker than a USB-C port at 2.56mm. When you look at the USB-C port on the Z Fold7, you realize that there really isn't much room left for slimming down without eliminating the port entirely. On the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7, there isn't much room for slimming down further. When folded, the Z Fold7 has a thickness of 8.9mm, which is a mere 0.7mm thicker than the Galaxy S25 Ultra. Honor's Magic V5 is an impressive 8.8mm, which sets the standard for thinness among foldables by less than half the thickness of a razor blade. That said, many users have reported that the Magic V5 has a noticeable inner display crease; meanwhile, Samsung's new Armor FlexHinge is thinner and lighter and uses a new multi-rail structure with a carbon fiber layer to improve durability and significantly smooth out the crease. Samsung has also upgraded both the inside and cover displays on the Z Fold7. The new main screen is 11% larger than the previous generation at 8 inches (2184 x 1968) with a wider 6.5-inch (2520 x 1080) cover screen. (Both screens are 120-hertz.) This means that this phone looks and feels like a regular phone, but then you can unfold it and have effectively an 8-inch tablet without compromising on weight or thickness. That is the magic of building this new generation of foldables so thin, and why I believe the Z Fold7 is Samsung's most competitive offering in the Fold line since the Z Fold. Samsung is also using Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 on the cover screen and a 50% thicker (though still ultra-thin) glass for the inside display, both of which improve durability. The Z Fold7 also drops pen support, but given that the Z Fold series has never had an integrated pen, I've never bothered to use one with it. Samsung also chose the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy processor, which keeps it in the same class of performance as the S25 Ultra. I will need to benchmark this one myself to see whether the thinness affects thermal performance, especially since cooling can add thickness and weight. The storage starts at 256GB paired with 12GB of RAM, with available upgrades up to 1TB and 16GB. The 16GB RAM option is only available in the 1TB model, which is the standard across many phones, but I will say that at a starting price of $2,000 it would be nice if the storage capacity started at 512GB. The first Z Fold shipped with 512GB of storage and 12GB of RAM, so I would expect that the world's leading maker of RAM and storage could offer that as a competitive advantage. Samsung also improved the camera on the Z Fold7 with the same 200MP main sensor that's found in the S25 Ultra; the Z Fold7 also features a cut-out 10MP selfie camera, along with a 12MP ultrawide and 10MP 3x telephoto. This is absolutely where I think some S25 Ultra users might be disappointed with the lack of a 5x optical telephoto — and they would be right, although the 5x option would make the phone thicker and the camera bump even more pronounced, which Samsung clearly didn't want to do. That said, I still believe Samsung needs to find a way to fit a 5x optical telephoto into its Fold phones to truly match the Galaxy S Ultra line, especially considering that many of its competitors have periscope cameras with accompanying camera bumps. The Galaxy Z Fold7 compared to the S25 Ultra for thickness Battery capacity on the Z Fold7 is the same as the Z Fold6, 4400 mAh, but the new model gets an hour more of video playback thanks to the upgraded Snapdragon 8 Elite processor. That said, Samsung should be looking at using silicon-carbon batteries, given that it has the smallest battery capacity of all the flagship foldables on the market by a considerable margin. Most of the competition is above 5000 mAh in capacity, and some go even further, like the Magic v5 with a whopping 5820 mAh. In general, we've seen this generation of batteries improve density by 20% while maintaining the same thickness, meaning that Samsung should be able to crack the 5000 mAh barrier without losing the phone's thinness. Another thing to consider is that the Z Fold7 maintains the Z Fold6's 25-watt charging speed, which is on par with the iPhone but lags significantly behind virtually every Android competitor, including Moto's new Razr Ultra, which now features 68-watt charging. Even the S25 and S24 Ultra both offer 45-watt charging. I also really like that Samsung continues to focus on software with the Galaxy Z series, especially to take advantage of the large display of the Z Fold7. The phone comes with the latest Google Android 16 and the new OneUI 8, which are both optimized for larger displays and multitasking. The increased focus on multitasking should cater to productivity-minded customers who come to the Fold family for better productivity on the go. Google's Gemini Live and Circle to Search have both been enhanced for the Z series. Galaxy AI has also been enhanced for larger-screen experiences to obscure less of the application while enabling AI features. Samsung is also boosting security with Knox Enhanced Encrypted Protection. This is mostly to keep Samsung users' data and interactions with AI on-device as much as possible. The Galaxy Z Fold7 starts at $1,999 and will be generally available on July 25 in Jet Black, Blue Shadow, Silver Shadow and a exclusive Mint color. Most carriers are offering up to $1,000 off with a device trade-in, with T-Mobile requiring only a 24-month contract, while the others require a 36-month contract. All the carriers and Samsung are also offering storage upgrades to 512GB for free (a $120 value) for preorders. I believe that Samsung should further incentivize previous Fold owners to trade in for the Z Fold7, because they will be Samsung's biggest champions and word-of-mouth advertisers. Plus, the Z Fold7 is by far the biggest improvement to the Fold series since the original Z Fold, and I think it should be made more attractive to more users. Will Users Flip Out For The Z Flip7 And Z Flip7 FE? The flip-foldable Z Flip7 and Z Flip7 FE are Samsung's more accessible and mainstream foldables. This is Samsung's first Flip FE; FE stands for Fan Edition, which is generally seen as a value version of the product with a lower cost and some dialed-down specs. With the Z Flip7, Samsung has finally reached display parity with its competition, namely Motorola. The Z Flip7 has a 4.1-inch cover display that Samsung calls the FlexWindow, which is bigger than the Moto Razr Ultra (4.0 inches), although the 6.9inch inside display is slightly smaller than the Razr's 7-inch display. Samsung's 4.1-inch screen also has a considerably narrower bezel. The Samsung's 120-hertz refresh rate is also a bit slower than Moto's 165-hertz refresh, but I don't think that's particularly important on a flip phone — certainly not as important as Samsung finally moving from a 3.4-inch cover display to a the 4.1-inch wraparound display that finally envelops the camera sensors. The FE maintains the Z Flip6's display configuration, sticking with the 3.4-inch cover screen and 6.7-inch inside display. Thanks to the new design on the Z Flip7, Samsung incorporates some camera status indicators on the screen around the camera sensors. When comparing these phones, it's also important to understand that Moto's Razr Ultra is $1,299, while the Z Flip7 starts at $1,099. So, there will naturally be some disparity in features. The Z Flip7 features Samsung's new Exynos 2500, which includes Arm's latest Cortex X925 CPU core paired with seven Cortex A725 cores and two Cortex A520 cores. This 3nm processor also includes the Samsung Xclipse 950 GPU, which licenses IP from AMD. This should make for a fairly competitive processor against the Snapdragon 8 Elite, but since it hasn't commercially shipped in a product yet, it's unclear how well it will stack up in performance and battery life. The Z Flip7 FE runs on the Exynos 2400 processor, which can also be found in the S24 and S24+ in some regions. Both the Z Flip7 and Z Flip7 FE will feature Samsung's latest 5G modem, which could offer a different experience from the Z Fold7. The Z Flip7 starts at 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which is good for a flip phone. The Z Flip7 FE starts at 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage to hit the $899 price point. The Z Flip7 uses Wi-Fi 7 for connectivity, while the Z Flip7 FE uses Wi-Fi 6E. Samsung has also stuck with a tried-and-true formula for the Z Flip7's rear dual-camera setup (50MP main and 12MP ultrawide), along with a 10MP selfie camera on the inside screen. The Z Flip7 FE has effectively the same cameras as the Z Flip7, which means that Samsung hasn't made any improvements to the camera in this generation. I think this is a mistake, especially for the Z Flip7, because Motorola now has dual 50MP sensors, and some other competitors like Huawei have triple-camera configurations. While I appreciate Samsung's more consumer-friendly pricing, it's unclear how the market will receive continued stagnation on the camera front, especially for an audience that cares so much about camera quality. The 4300 mAh battery on the Z Flip7 is decent considering the smaller displays, but again the specifics of battery life will not be known until the new Exynos 2500 is benchmarked. The Z Flip7 FE has a smaller 4000 mAh battery to go with the Exynos 2400 processor, but considering its smaller displays, it's unclear yet which one will have the better battery life. Samsung has given the Z Flip7 some great features for photography and selfies, plus many of the software benefits of OneUI 8 and Android 16. But it does feel like Samsung is playing catch-up here, and it is still lacking in areas such as fast charging across the entire Galaxy Z series. The addition of the company's Desktop eXperience software to the Z Flip7 could also make it a lot more useful for productivity, although Samsung needs to do a better job of communicating what DeX can do and who it's for. The Z Flip7 seems to be splitting the difference among Motorola's Razr Ultra, Razr+ and Razr models, while the Z Flip7 FE is clearly targeted at Motorola's base-model Razr — and I believe may offer a better value than the Razr. The important thing to keep in mind here is that the Flip line is Samsung's volume leader and where it will make most of its revenues and profits from the Z series. This may explain the sudden shift back to the Exynos processor after Samsung went all-Snapdragon for the previous generation. The Z Flip7 is also how Samsung reaches a younger audience that would be more likely to use an iPhone. Samsung Galaxy Z's Future It's quite clear that in this generation Samsung has put most of its effort into the Galaxy Z Fold7. While I don't think the Z Fold7 is perfect, this is by far the closest the company has come to delivering a premium experience that rivals the Galaxy S Ultra line. I also believe that the Z Fold7 will breathe new life into the Fold line as a whole, likely getting previous Fold users to upgrade while also attracting new Fold users. It isn't quite perfect yet, but Samsung is making a lot of noteworthy improvements to the hardware that I believe will delight productivity users. Meanwhile, the Z Flip7 and Z Flip7 FE feel much more reactive to what the rest of the Android foldable ecosystem is doing; the Flip models are trying to compete more on price while still delivering decent specifications and features. I think the Z Flip7 is finally competitive with Motorola on many specs and features, although it falls short in a few other areas. The Z Flip7 FE is the company's first foldable Fan Edition, but I also believe it could be a good value at $899, especially compared to offerings from Motorola, which seems like Samsung's #1 foldable competition in the U.S. Samsung's pricing seems to thread a needle in Motorola's good, better, best lineup — and that's a strategy that might pay off. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 and Z Fold7 at Galaxy Unpacked The younger generation of users that Samsung is targeting with the Z Flip7 line is a lot less concerned about specs, speeds and feeds. But they do still care about performance and battery life, and they want experiences to work seamlessly. Motorola has done a great job of attracting that audience, and I believe that Samsung can too if the company is savvy with its marketing, positioning and branding. Accessories and customization are very important as well, and from what I've seen Samsung does those things better than anyone else in the Android ecosystem. Moving forward, I'd love to see Samsung invest in larger battery capacities, faster charging and even better cameras. I will be getting my hands on sample units of these phones fairly soon and will write up my thoughts on the devices once I've spent some time with them. I'm excited to try out the Z Fold7 as my daily device, because I really do miss the Android foldable experience. That said, I also care about camera performance, which is why the S25 Ultra lured me away from the Pixel 9 Pro Fold I was using as my daily driver last year. We'll see how the new Z series phones stack up pretty soon.
Yahoo
07-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Nvidia stock: Why investors are bullish again
Nvidia (NVDA) stock has rebounded from April lows as investor concerns around tariffs, China, and artificial intelligence (AI) capital expenditure (CapEx) risks have eased. Patrick Moorhead, founder, CEO, and chief analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, joins Market Domination Overtime to explain why optimism around industrial and enterprise AI is keeping demand and spending alive. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination Overtime here. Let's begin with Nvidia. Big run off the April low. A name a lot of people know. A name a lot of people watching right now, certainly own. What explains that move off the April low? Yeah, so a lot of risks were taken down, you know, it was screaming for so long and then tariffs hit, uh, China hit, uh, potential GDP concerns, even questions about capex. And nearly all of them just completely evaporated and came off the table. So the risk is lower in the perception with investors. And for the first time, this year, this year of the potential next wave of Industrial AI, investors are starting to see the correlation, the potential upside. You mentioned capex, which is an interesting point because there were some skeptics we had on the show who were arguing perhaps that maybe 2025 is going to represent some sort of high mark, some sort of peak in AI capex, and that was bad news for the likes of Nvidia. Do you buy that? Uh, I don't, but I do think the growth will be tempered, right? Well, we see 10% growth, 20% growth likely. We won't be seeing 50% growth. But the other, the only thing that could change my mind on that is I'm doing a little bit more research on the industrial edge and also enterprise AI because as AI gets permeated into everything, into businesses, on premises, and even in the industrial edge, somebody is going to have to pay for that equipment. And if it's not going to be who you might expect, let's say the carriers, uh, the folks who are out there investing in it today, other companies might have to come in, let's say the hyperscalers go after that.
CNBC
03-07-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Patrick Moorhead: The U.S. lifting China restrictions is a positive sign for chip software designers
Patrick Moorhead, Moor Insights founder and chief analyst, joins CNBC's 'Squawk on the Street' to discuss the path forward for chip design stocks as the U.S. lifts export controls on China.
Forbes
27-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
AMD Keeps Building Momentum In AI, With Plenty Of Work Still To Do
At the AMD Advancing AI event, CEO Lisa Su touted the company's AI compute portfolio. At the AMD Advancing AI event in San Jose earlier this month, CEO Lisa Su and her staff showcased the company's progress across many different facets of AI. They had plenty to announce in both hardware and software, including significant performance gains for GPUs, ongoing advances in the ROCm development platform and the forthcoming introduction of rack-scale infrastructure. There were also many references to trust and strong relationships with customers and partners, which I liked, and a lot of emphasis on open hardware and an open development ecosystem, which I think is less of a clear winner for AMD, as I'll explain later. Overall, I think the event was important for showing how AMD is moving the ball down the field for customers and developers. Under Su, AMD's M.O. is to have clear, ambitious plans and execute against them. Her 'say/do' ratio is high. The company does what it says it will do. This is exactly what it must continue doing to whittle away at Nvidia's dominance in the datacenter AI GPU market. What I saw at the Advancing AI event raised my confidence from last year — although there are a few gaps that need to be addressed. (Note: AMD is an advisory client of my firm, Moor Insights & Strategy.) AMD's AI Market Opportunity And Full-Stack Strategy When she took the stage, Su established the context for AMD's announcements by describing the staggering growth that is the backdrop for today's AI chip market. Just take a look at the chart below. So far, AMD's bullish projections for the growth of the AI chip market have turned out to be ... More accurate. So this segment of the chip industry is looking at a TAM of half a trillion dollars by 2028, with the whole AI accelerator market increasing at a 60% CAGR. The AI inference sub-segment — where AMD competes on better footing with Nvidia — is enjoying an 80% CAGR. People thought that the market numbers AMD cited last year were too high, but not so. This is the world we're living in. For the record, I never doubted the TAM numbers last year. AMD is carving out a bigger place in this world for itself. As Su pointed out, its Instinct GPUs are used by seven of the 10 largest AI companies, and they drive AI for Microsoft Office, Facebook, Zoom, Netflix, Uber, Salesforce and SAP. Its EPYC server CPUs continue to put up record market share (40% last quarter), and it has built out a full stack — partly through smart acquisitions — to support its AI ambitions. I would point in particular to the ZT Systems acquisition and the introduction of the Pensando DPU and the Pollara NIC. GPUs are at the heart of datacenter AI, and AMD's new MI350 series was in the spotlight at this event. Although these chips were slated to ship in Q3, Su said that production shipments had in fact started earlier in June, with partners on track to launch platforms and public cloud instances in Q3. There were cheers from the crowd when they heard that the MI350 delivers a 4x performance improvement over the prior generation. AMD says that its high-end MI355X GPU outperforms the Nvidia B200 to the tune of 1.6x memory, 2.2x compute throughput and 40% more tokens per dollar. (Testing by my company Signal65 showed that the MI355X running DeepSeek-R1 produced up to 1.5x higher throughput than the B200.) To put it in a different perspective, a single MI355X can run a 520-billion-parameter model. And I wasn't surprised when Su and others onstage looked ahead to even better performance — maybe 10x better — projected for the MI400 series and beyond. That puts us into the dreamland of an individual GPU running a trillion-parameter model. By the way, AMD has not forgotten for one second that it is a CPU company. The EPYC Venice processor scheduled to hit the market in 2026 should be better at absolutely everything — 256 high-performance cores, 70% more compute performance than the current generation and so on. EPYC's rapid gains in datacenter market share over the past few years are no accident, and at this point all the company needs to do for CPUs is hold steady on its current up-and-to-the-right trajectory. I am hopeful that Signal65 will get a crack at testing the claims the company made at the event. This level of performance is needed in the era of agentic AI and a landscape of many competing and complementary AI models. Su predicts — and I agree — that there will be hundreds of thousands of specialized AI models in the coming years. This is specifically true for enterprises that will have smaller models focused on areas like CRM, ERP, SCM, HCM, legal, finance and so on. To support this, AMD talked at the event about its plan to sustain an annual cadence of Instinct accelerators, adding a new generation every year. Easy to say, hard to do — though, again, AMD has a high say/do ratio these days. AMD's 2026 Rack-Scale Platform And Current Software Advances On the hardware side, the biggest announcement was the forthcoming Helios rack-scale GPU product that AMD plans to deliver in 2026. This is a big deal, and I want to emphasize how difficult it is to bring together high-performing CPUs (EPYC Venice), GPUs (MI400) and networking chips (next-gen Pensando Vulcano NICs) in a liquid-cooled rack. It's also an excellent way to take on Nvidia, which makes a mint off of its own rack-scale offerings for AI. At the event, Su said she believes that Helios will be the new industry standard when it launches next year (and cited a string of specs and performance numbers to back that up). It's good to see AMD provide a roadmap this far out, but it also had to after Nvidia did at the GTC event earlier this year. On the software side, Vamsi Boppana, senior vice president of the Artificial Intelligence Group at AMD, started off by announcing the arrival of ROCm 7, the latest version of the company's open source software platform for GPUs. Again, big improvements come with each generation — in this case, a 3.5x gain in inference performance compared to ROCm 6. Boppana stressed the very high cadence of updates for AMD software, with new features being released every two weeks. He also talked about the benefits of distributed inference, which allows the two steps of inference to be tasked to separate GPU pools, further speeding up the process. Finally, he announced — to a chorus of cheers — the AMD Developer Cloud, which makes AMD GPUs accessible from anywhere so developers can use them to test-drive their ideas. Last year, Meta had kind things to say about ROCm, and I was impressed because Meta is the hardest 'grader' next to Microsoft. This year, I heard companies talking about both training and inference, and again I'm impressed. (More on that below.) It was also great getting some time with Anush Elangovan, vice president for AI software at AMD, for a video I shot with him. Elangovan is very hardcore, which is exactly what AMD needs. Real grinders. Nightly code drops. What's Working Well For AMD in AI So that's (most of) what was new at AMD Advancing AI. In the next three sections, I want to talk about the good, the needs-improvement and the yet-to-be-determined aspects of what I heard during the event. Let's start with the good things that jumped out at me. What Didn't Work For Me At Advancing AI While overall I thought Advancing AI was a win for AMD, there were two areas where I thought the company missed the mark — one by omission, one by commission. The Jury Is Out On Some Elements Of AMD's AI Strategy In some areas, I suspect that AMD is doing okay or will be doing okay soon — but I'm just not sure. I can't imagine that any of the following items has completely escaped AMD's attention, but I would recommend that the company address them candidly so that customers know what to expect and can maintain high confidence in what AMD is delivering. What Comes Next In AMD's AI Development It is very difficult to engineer cutting-edge semiconductors — let alone rack-scale systems and all the attendant software — on the steady cadence that AMD is maintaining. So kudos to Su and everyone else at the company who's making that happen. But my confidence (and Wall Street's) would rise if AMD provided more granularity about what it's doing, starting with datacenter GPU forecasts. Clearly, AMD doesn't need to compete with Nvidia on every single thing to be successful. But it would be well served to fill in some of the gaps in its story to better speak to the comprehensive ecosystem it's creating. Having spent plenty of time working inside companies on both the OEM and semiconductor sides, I do understand the difficulties AMD faces in providing that kind of clarity. The process of landing design wins can be lumpy, and a few of the non-AMD speakers at Advancing AI mentioned that the company is engaged in the 'bake-offs' that are inevitable in that process. Meanwhile, we're left to wonder what might be holding things back, other than AMD's institutional conservatism — the healthy reticence of engineers not to make any claims until they're sure of the win. That said, with Nvidia's B200s sold out for the next year, you'd think that AMD should be able to sell every wafer it makes, right? So are AMD's yields not good enough yet? Or are hyperscalers having their own problems scaling and deploying? Is there some other gating item? I'd love to know. Please don't take any of my questions the wrong way, because AMD is doing some amazing things, and I walked away from the Advancing AI event impressed with the company's progress. At the show, Su was forthright about describing the pace of this AI revolution we're living in — 'unlike anything we've seen in modern computing, anything we've seen in our careers, and frankly, anything we've seen in our lifetime.' I'll keep looking for answers to my nagging questions, and I'm eager to see how the competition between AMD and Nvidia plays out over the next two years and beyond. Meanwhile, AMD moved down the field at its event, and I look forward to seeing where it is headed.
Forbes
26-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Quantum Threats Reshape Commvault's Vision For Data Security
Commvault is incorporating post-quantum cryptography to address future data security risks. Data protection provider Commvault announced earlier this month that it is adding more quantum-safe capabilities to its platform to build out defenses against post-quantum cryptography. This is important because, as quantum computing shifts from theoretical to practical use, it brings a new class of cybersecurity threats. To help organizations prepare, Commvault has incorporated NIST-recommended PQC algorithms into its data protection offerings, covering both cloud and on-premises environments. The goal is to ensure long-term data security by protecting backups made today from potential decryption by future quantum systems. Over the past year, Commvault has introduced multiple post-quantum cryptography capabilities to safeguard data against future risks posed by quantum computing. PQC has important implications for customers, competitors and the broader industry, and all organizations should prepare for a quantum-driven — and quantum-safe — future. (Note: Commvault is an advisory client of my firm, Moor Insights & Strategy.) Understanding The Quantum Threat To Enterprise Data First, a little background on why this is so important. Quantum computers apply principles of quantum mechanics to process information in fundamentally different ways from classical computers. While this could unlock incredible advances in medicine, materials science, finance, AI and more, it also introduces new security concerns. This is because current encryption methods such as RSA and elliptic curve cryptography depend on mathematical problems that are very hard to reverse — unless a powerful quantum computer is involved. Once quantum computers that powerful are launched, probably in the next few years, these algorithms can potentially be broken quickly, compromising these widely used encryption methods. A crucial concern today is the 'harvest now, decrypt later' tactic, where bad actors can intercept and store encrypted data to decrypt it in the future once quantum capabilities mature. HNDL protection is especially critical for sectors with long-term data sensitivity, such as healthcare, finance and government. (Think of any setting in which sensitive information — names, dates of birth, government ID numbers, bank account numbers, medical histories and the like — remains unchanged for many years.) A survey by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association found that 63% of cybersecurity professionals believe quantum computing will shift or expand cyber risks, and half expect it to create compliance challenges. This image shows how users can enable PQC within Commvault's CommCell environment by selecting a ... More checkbox in the group configuration settings. Commvault's Post-Quantum Cryptography Response Commvault has taken a practical, multi-stage approach to quantum-era risks. In August 2024, it introduced a cryptographic agility framework, which is meant to allow organizations to adopt new cryptographic standards for PQC without major system changes. The framework includes several NIST-recommended quantum-resistant algorithms — CRYSTALS-Kyber, CRYSTALS-Dilithium, SPHINCS+ and FALCON. (My colleague Paul Smith-Goodson, who has been covering quantum computing for years, went into more detail about these algorithms in the context of IBM's PQC efforts, also in August 2024.) Commvault's announcement earlier this month builds on last year's release by adding support for the Hamming Quasi-Cyclic algorithm, which uses quantum error-correcting codes to resist quantum decryption. But rather than focusing only on algorithm support, Commvault also emphasizes operational integration. Its Risk Analysis tools help organizations identify sensitive data, allowing quantum-resistant encryption to be applied where it's most needed. The crypto-agility framework offered by Commvault allows organizations to shift between cryptographic methods via relatively simple configuration changes, without needing to overhaul their existing environments. This flexibility helps minimize disruptions and lowers the costs associated with adapting to new standards as they emerge. Securing Critical Industries For The Quantum Era Commvault's PQC features should be especially helpful to organizations in healthcare, finance and government as they address compliance needs, ensure continuity and — most importantly — protect data that is held for decades. As touched on above, these industries are especially at risk for deferred decryption attacks, so implementing PQC features now should help address the risk of HNDL exploits later. Besides the benefits already mentioned, this could help organizations using Commvault maintain trust among regulators, customers and partners for the long haul. As data protection standards in these industries become stricter in anticipation of quantum threats, solutions that incorporate quantum-resistant encryption are increasingly necessary. Forward-looking IT organizations are already adopting these technologies. For instance, the Nevada Department of Transportation has adopted Commvault's PQC tools to meet government security requirements and protect sensitive information. The company also cited Peter Hands, CISO of the British Medical Association, who said, 'Commvault's rapid integration of NIST's quantum-resistant standards, particularly HQC, gives us great confidence that our critical information is protected now and well into the future.' The adoption of PQC is accelerating as both technological developments and regulatory requirements create a framework for organizations to address emerging threats from quantum computing. In the United States, for instance, federal agencies have been instructed to integrate post-quantum standards into their procurement and operational practices. Similar regulatory efforts are taking place in the European Union and other jurisdictions, where updates to data protection frameworks increasingly include provisions for quantum-safe encryption. To maintain security and compatibility during the transition, many organizations are implementing hybrid encryption methods that combine traditional and quantum-resistant algorithms. This approach allows for gradual migration to fully quantum-resistant systems while enabling protection against both current and future threats. PQC Challenges And The Push For Wider Adoption Commvault's phased introduction of PQC capabilities is a step forward, but current support is mostly limited to cloud-based customers using particular software versions. This creates a gap for organizations relying on hybrid or on-premises environments, which are still widely used in sensitive sectors like those already mentioned. To address this, Commvault would benefit from providing a clear roadmap for extending PQC support across all deployment models. Such a roadmap should outline which software versions will be supported, specify the technical requirements and offer a realistic timeline for implementation. The broader data protection market is also shifting as major technology providers such as IBM and Microsoft integrate quantum-safe features into their platforms. Other data protection vendors, such as Cohesity, Veeam and Rubrik, are expected to follow suit as industry standards become more established. This means Commvault will likely face growing competition in offering robust PQC solutions. Keeping pace will require not only technical expansion but also practical guidance for customers on how to adopt and apply PQC in various enterprise scenarios. Flexibility and clear communication about available features and best practices will be important for supporting a wide range of customer environments and needs. Aligning Data Security Strategies For A Quantum Future Commvault's early efforts in post-quantum cryptography and crypto-agility demonstrate a commitment to long-term data security. However, maintaining progress will depend on expanding access to PQC features for all customers, providing transparent information about costs and continuing to work closely with regulatory bodies. Quantum computing presents both new risks and opportunities. As traditional encryption methods become more vulnerable, the need for quantum-resistant security will grow. Commvault's PQC features offer a practical way for organizations to protect data that must remain secure for years. By focusing on adaptability, compliance and targeted encryption strategies, Commvault helps customers build stronger defenses for the future. The timeline for quantum decryption could be shorter than many anticipate, making it important for organizations to start preparing now. For enterprises, taking early action is important to avoid exposure and regulatory issues. For vendors, ongoing improvements in accessibility, transparency and alignment with emerging standards will determine long-term success. Simplifying the path to quantum readiness will be a key factor in supporting customers through this transition.
