2024 Outlook with Hassan Triqui CEO of Secure-IC

Hassan TRIQUI has over 20 years of experience in the technology sector. Prior to spearheading Secure-IC’s development into a major player in embedded cybersecurity solutions, Hassan was a former senior executive at Thales and Thomson. Hassan is a pioneer, a Brittany Tech patriot, and passionate about providing solutions that generate the real trust that clients deserve.

Secure-IC is the rising leader in embedded cybersecurity for embedded systems and connected objects. Established back in 2010, the company has accomplished major milestones such as more than a billion IPs (Intellectual Properties) deployed, and more than 250 patents and 350 scientific publications.

Secure-IC offers cutting-edge technologies that are fully digital, certifications compliant, and silicon proven (Securyzr™), complemented by its cybersecurity evaluation tools (Laboryzr™) and its expertise for certifications and consulting services (Expertyzr™). All being backed-up by a strong and experienced team making it the only one-stop-shop for embedded security solutions.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your company.
Today, Secure-IC is proud to be the security provider for numerous renowned customers around the world in different applications. For instance, MediaTek with its flagship Dimensity 9300 implementing AI for mobile, or UnseenLabs with its satellites fleet implementing PQC (Post-Quantum Cryptography) to ensure a safer world.

This incredible story relies on its co-founders who supported this project and conveyed it straight to success thanks to all Secure-IC’s workforce along the years. Our leadership and management ensure every day that Secure-IC continues to develop best of breed security solutions and satisfy its customers by guiding the company towards its ‘Chip-to-Cloud’ vision. One key success factor that enabled the company to succeed was and still is its commitment to its global ecosystem.

What was the most exciting high point of 2023 for your company?
Secure-IC has been showing a high growth rate for a couple of years and therefore is starting to check major milestones.

Indeed, one exciting milestone for 2023 was the construction of its brand-new international headquarters based in Rennes, France. This new HQ has for objectives to offer the best conditions to its engineering workforce with high-tech laboratories and top performance datacenter for faster and safer data. Moreover, customers and security partners will be able to observe what Secure-IC has been achieving for the last years with its showroom displaying top-notch technologies from around the world.

What was the biggest challenge your company faced in 2023?
From a start-up to a global corporation with more than 150 employees nowadays, Secure-IC’s biggest challenge in 2023 was managing the growth. Indeed, not only did the workforce keep on growing fast across the globe, but the company’s revenues also kept the pace to a 2-digit growth each year, making Secure-IC one of the key players in the industry.

Such growth implies ‘change management’ at both corporate and operational levels, required for the corporation to scale-up and better serve its customers while minimizing the impact on people by making it as smooth as possible. At Secure-IC, action plans and long-term vision have been established to ensure this transition is realized in the best way possible.

How is your company’s work addressing this biggest challenge?
As explained before, this challenge was long before predicted by Secure-IC’s management team and therefore being handled carefully.

Hence, one objective that has been identified was the streamlining of internal processes. By doing so, the company ensures that its customers have the best experience with its project management team and that they are well served across the world. As a result, Secure-IC is proud of its 95%+ satisfaction rate, showing the strong relationship that exists between the company and its customers, as intended by its mission being to partner.

On top of that, Secure-IC aims at remaining the leader in terms of technology. Therefore, the company also addresses its challenge of growth by keeping on sharpening its differentiating technologies, as well as developing a clear product portfolio coupled with ambitious roadmaps to make sure that it offers best of breed technology and products including PQC and AI for instance.

What do you think the biggest growth area for 2024 will be, and why?
The 21^st century is marked with its non-stop hockey stick curve-based technological improvements, which is especially illustrated through Moore’s law for semiconductors. As a result, not only pure software-based technologies were brought out to every application of our daily lives, but semiconductors too.

One example is the automotive industry. Moving from simple architectures with limited embedded systems on board to complex architectures (ECUs for each function to ZCUs controlling parts of the vehicle), cars from tomorrow are now being completely reinvented. Such technological improvements require from global organizations and governmental administrations to converge on global standards for ensuring optimized autonomous driving systems connected with the environment (V2V – Vehicle to Vehicle and V2X – Vehicle to Everything communications) as well on certifications to ensure both the security and safety of drivers and their environment (ISO 21434, ISO 26262…).

Such complexity opens doors to more attacks, being as complex as their target. One example, the successful attack targeting a Tesla shows the world how critical it has become to secure embedded systems against both physical and software attacks.

We also foresee other key driving forces in the industry. One example that keeps on growing every day is the rising popularity of Artificial Intelligence (AI) (esp. generative AI) and the explosion of the associated use cases. These functions will have to be implemented in devices and leverage the acceleration of hardware.

Security is an absolute must-have for any AI-application and its implementation in chipsets and devices in general since data must be protected, from the cloud all the way down to the chip (as described by Secure-IC’s Chip-to-Cloud vision), from the training data to the model itself, while preserving privacy, etc. Chipmakers and system companies are already starting to develop and produce ‘AI-chips’, which must be ‘trustworthy’ to be adopted.

AI will also make some attacks easier to perform and threats more dangerous.

Of course, AI is also an incredible technology to enhance security functions and design security policy.

Last, datacenter security and chiplets will be key trends to be closely followed-up.

How is your company’s work addressing this growth?
To address the evolution of the automotive space, Secure-IC’s teams produce significant efforts in understanding the needs of the whole value chain including the OEMs and Tier 1 with key partnerships and projects. In other words, Secure-IC not only listens to its customers but also to its customers’ customers to make sure its long-term vision and product roadmaps are accurate and maximizes the value it brings to the table.

As a matter of fact, Secure-IC is proud to offer its customers safe and secure technologies, such as ISO 26262 ASIL-D compliant security solutions ensuring them best of breed security according to global standards.

Regarding AI, Secure-IC already has its Securyzr™ solutions adapted to the AI-threat models. We are also deeply and constantly investigating on how the use of AI can enhance our portfolio and productivity (both on the protection and analysis sides), as proven by the launch of our Intrusion Detection System IDS (attached to our integrated Secure Element S700 Series for Automotive), leveraging AI.

What conferences did you attend in 2023 and how was the traffic?
Secure-IC has a very unique positioning of thought leadership in embedded cybersecurity and works by definition in an international stage. Therefore Secure-IC participate and speak at more than 4 events per month, which is very special for a company our size.

In 2023, Secure-IC actively participated in major global conferences, including CES Las Vegas, DAC, Mobile World Congress, Embedded World, ICCAD in China, Indocrypt in India, or Chipex in Israel. Secure-IC’s presence is aimed at showcasing cutting-edge technologies, connecting with customers, and gathering industry insights, but also to leading technology and scientific conferences worldwide.

These conferences provided a great platform to engage with diverse audiences and contribute to the cybersecurity community. The launch of the Security Science Factory (Secure-IC’s innovation engine) underlines the commitment to knowledge dissemination and cybersecurity awareness. The response was overwhelming, with booths and sessions attracting substantial traffic, reinforcing the impact of Secure-IC in the cybersecurity landscape.

Will you attend conferences in 2024? Same or more?
Absolutely, in 2024, Secure-IC is poised for even greater visibility and presence on the global stage. As a fast-growing company, our commitment is to align our growth with an increased presence at industry events. To achieve this, our executives and representatives are planning to attend approximately 50 conferences worldwide.

Also, we are planning our important product announcements alongside those key moments in the year.

We encourage you to visit our booth at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this February (booth 5B41-2), at FIC (International Cybersecurity Forum) in March or Embedded World next April.

Additional questions or final comments?
In this multi-connected world, embedded security is needed everywhere. Secure-IC positions itself in a way that customers can find a unique answer encompassing multiple security concerns of theirs while keeping in contact with only one provider: One-Stop-Shop.

Secure-IC successfully served more than 250 customers across the globe since its incorporation and will continue to do so by providing security solutions that go one step further from Chip-to-Cloud with a key goal: enabling trusted data.

If you want to learn more information about Secure-IC we invite you to subscribe to our monthly newsletter here.

Also Read:

Rugged Security Solutions For Evolving Cybersecurity Threats

Cyber-Physical Security from Chip to Cloud with Post-Quantum Cryptography

How Do You Future-Proof Security?