Post-Quantum Cryptography Alliance - Technical Advisory Council (TAC) Meeting 28 January, 2026

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Voting Representative Attendance (Alphabetical by 1st name)

Premier Member Representatives

  • Brian Jarvis, AWS [TAC Chair]
  • Michael Maximilien, IBM
  • Norman Ashley, Cisco (OQS Rep)
  • Sophie Schmieg, Google
  • Yarkin Doroz, NVIDIA

### Project Representatives

  • Matthias Kannwischer, TCR
  • Hanno Becker, AWS (PQCP)
  • Andreas Schade, IBM (CBOMkit)

Non-Voting Representative Attendance

LF Staff

  • Christina Harter
  • Hart Montgomery
  • Min Yu

Other Attendees

  • Aditya Koranga, NgKore [TAC Vice Chair]
  • Abner Rodriguez-Guadalupe, NetStrike Labs

Meeting Agenda

  • Welcome to any new members
  • Action item follow ups:
    • [Norman] OQS metric
    • [Matthias / Hart] CHERI blog cross-post
    • [Andreas / Katerina / Finn] CBOMkit Pipeline blog post
  • [Christina] Cisco <> PQCA Meetup Event - February 3rd - Register for free
  • [Christina] Summer Mentorship Program - Call for Mentors - Issue Template for project proposals created in TAC repo
  • Project status updates: OQS, PQCP, CBOMkit
  • Any new business

Discussion & Updates

Introduction of 1st Time Attendees

None.

OQS Metrics

Norman’s follow-up on Open Quantum Safe (OQS) business metrics was deferred to the next OQS status meeting.

Blog Updates

Cherry IoT × PQCP Collaboration: The TAC briefly discussed blog collaboration efforts, including the Cherry IoT blog cross-posting initiative. Christina noted that she would discuss reaching out to David Chrisnell with Hart, and keep everyone posted on next steps. Hanno confirmed that the Cherry IoT integration with PQCP was successful and resulted in improvements to ML-KEM and MLDSA native.

CBOM Kit Pipeline Blog:

Andreas reported that the CBOMkit pipeline blog post is still in development, with no new updates to share.

Cisco PQC Event

Christina reminded everyone of the upcoming PQC Meetup hosted by Cisco, scheduled for February 3, from 3:00–5:00 PM CET. The event will be livestreamed and feature panel discussions with PQCA community members. Register for free.

Mentorship Program Launch and Feedback

Christina announced that the PQCA mentorship program will officially launch next week. She shared a link to the updated wiki page outlining benefits and resources for mentors and mentees.

Key discussion points included:

  • Introduction of a new mentorship project proposal issue template in the TAC repository.
  • Acknowledgement that mentor availability remains the primary challenge.
  • Christina encouraged potential mentors to participate and highlighted Matthias as an example of a successful mentor experience.
  • To help address concerns about time commitment, Brian proposed creating a short presentation or write-up from current mentors. Christina will follow up with Basil and Matthias to share a “week in the life” perspective of mentoring.

The TAC was asked to review the project proposal issue template and provide feedback to ensure it supports effective project evaluation.

Project Updates

  • OQS
    • No rep from OQS on the call.
  • PQCP
    • MLDSA Native Integration Progress

Hanno provided a detailed update on MLDSA native:

  • Successful integrations into OpenTitan and Amazon Crypto Library (AWS-LC).
  • Planned integration into EmbedTLS.
  • Ongoing work to reduce memory usage while preserving security guarantees.
  • Active effort to extend assembly-level proof coverage, with many functions still in progress.

Hanno noted that memory optimizations are currently gated behind a configuration flag due to limitations in CBMC’s handling of unions versus structs. He is actively working with CBMC maintainers to address these issues.

  • CBOMkit
    • CBOMkit Language Support Updates

Andreas reported progress on adding Go language support to CBOMkit:

  • Go is now functional within the SonarQ plugin, though not yet integrated into other tooling.
  • Java and Python remain the primary supported languages, with Go as the third.
  • No formal roadmap exists for additional languages due to resource constraints.

Andreas encouraged contributors interested in additional language support to engage with the CBOMkit project.

Next Steps / Action Items

Action Item Owner Status / Due Date
Follow up with Hart on next steps for cross-posting the Cherry IoT blog to the PQCA blog Christina Before next meeting
Coordinate with Matthias and Basil to prepare mentor experience content (“week in the life”) Christina Before next meeting
Review mentorship project proposal issue template and provide feedback All TAC members Before next meeting
Send email with instructions for submitting mentorship project proposals Christina Next week
Check with Marku on the status of SLHDSA work and report any updates Hanno Before next meeting

Adjourned: 7:22am PT.