Fortaegis

TNO is entering into a strategic partnership with Fortaegis, an innovative Dutch deep-tech company developing advanced chip security technology. By leveraging TNO’s technological expertise, networks, and infrastructure, this collaboration aims to accelerate the development of a new generation of security solutions in which protection is built directly into the chip. This innovation eliminates the need to store or exchange encryption keys, making systems inherently more secure without compromising performance. As part of the partnership, TNO is also making a financial investment in Fortaegis through its private holding company, TNO Ventures. This initiative aligns with TNO’s broader strategy to actively support promising start-ups and scale-ups through equity participation and long-term partnerships. With this approach, TNO aims to accelerate and strengthen the growth of the Dutch high-tech sector.

Fortaegis’ technology can be used in both military and civilian settings. For example, securing communications for autonomous vehicles and drones, safeguarding AI workloads across data centers and protecting critical infrastructure such as telecom networks and energy grids. The company has developed a method that uses a chip’s unique physical “fingerprint” as the basis for security.

This concept leverages the minute and unavoidable imperfections inherent to the semiconductor manufacturing process, which render each chip physically unique. Because the security is built into the chip itself, the system offers significantly stronger protection and higher performance than traditional software-based solutions. The architecture eliminates the need to store cryptographic keys in databases, removing the primary target for hackers. Furthermore, secure connections are established without exchanging public keys, making the architecture inherently resistant to the threat of powerful quantum computers that can break traditional encryption.

In the early stages of development, TNO contributed to the software foundations of Fortaegis’ security platform. TNO has since evaluated Fortaegis’ technology, including software testing to validate the chip’s performance. In addition to investing in the current funding round, TNO is entering into a long-term partnership with Fortaegis. The partnership will include application-level collaboration in areas such as federated learning and emerging network technologies, joint research through national and EU programs, and longer-term R&D projects.