WISeKey to leverage Zug Position in Switzerland as Crypto Valley by establishing an IoT Blockchain Center of Excellence WISeKey International Holding is a Zug Domiciliated Company

Geneva, Switzerland – April 20, 2017 – WISeKey International Holding Ltd (WIHN.SW), a leading Zug domiciliated Swiss cybersecurity and Blockchain IoT company announced today its intention to establish an Internet of Things (‘IoT) Blockchain Center of Excellence (‘Center’) in the Canton of Zug aiming to deploy a Trusted Blockchain as a Service platform.  The Center will offer a Blockchain Platform to US based enterprises, facilitating the rapid adaptation of on-board Blockchain based solutions and services.

The Canton of Zug is a region of Switzerland that is gradually attracting major crypto technology players and has become known as “Crypto Valley.”. Several major Blockchain and bitcoin companies are located in Zoug such as the Ethereum Foundation using the swiss experience on fintech and cybersceurity.

WISekey is a Swiss listed company with headquarters in Zug and operational centers in St. Gallen and Geneva, connected to a network of centers and offices located in Taiwan, Argentina, USA, France, Germany, UK and Japan. WISekey will be cooperating with Zug’s startup enterprises, fintech incubation firms, and governmental authorities all working on DeepTech technologies, on building points of view, proof of concepts, policies, educational materials including addressing all the distributed ledger capabilities across different Blockchain schemes (public, consortium and private), with industry verticalization and domain specialization (IoT, transactions, messaging, etc.), underpinned by the best underlying technologies from startups, our key partners and from the community. For more information visit https://www.wisekey.com/iot/.

At the heart of this localization at the Crypto Valley is the OISTE-WISeKey Cryptographic Root of Trust (‘RoT’) which has been actively used since 1999 by over 2.6 billion desktops, browsers, mobile devices, SSL certificates and IoT devices. The OISTE WISeKey Cryptographic RoT is ubiquitous and universal, and a pioneer in the creation of Digital Identities. This technology is required to integrate the OISTE/WISeKey RoT into IoT embedded devices with problem-solving Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) solutions. For WISeKey adding to its patent portfolio and intellectual property is key to ensuring that the company will be a major player in the “DeepTech” for years to come. This allows to distinguish WISeKey from other companies that use technology commonly available, as WISeKey focuses on integrating unique technology that is differentiated, protected and hard to reproduce based on tangible scientific discoveries or engineering innovations. By integrating this technology WISEKey is trying to solve big issues that really affect the world.

While IoT remains wildly insecure, thanks to the integrated solution operated by the WISeKey Vertical Platform, IoT devices would be able to organize themselves into trusted networks based on mutual authentication, identity and integrity. This trusted cybersecurity platform will only enable IoT devices which can provide a recognized identity and a valid integrity report to communicate with peer devices that are part of the trusted community.

WISeKey is also adding AI at the chip level together with the WISeKey RoT it will allow IoT to provide authenticated sensor data. Current IoT data do not provide value for their manufacturers unless it can be converted into actionable, contextualized information generated by IoT sensors fully identifiable.  The majority of IoT devices are not built with embedded secured systems thus are very vulnerable.  By integrating AI into the WISekey RoT and Vertical Platform, objects can develop their own cybersecurity behavior, thus making smarter and safer decisions. IoT objects with this technology will learn from attacks, defend them and transfer this intelligence via the WISekey Vertical Platform to other IoT objects peer to peer using a Blockchain.

WISekey will include AI solution at the integrated circuits allowing AI to be hosted on a hardware vault with the highest level of certification able to encrypt communications and authenticate the devices. This will also allow AI to leverage the massive big data generated by the deployment of WISeKey’s RoT now embedded in more than 2.5 billion devices worldwide benefitting from the strong cryptographic capabilities deployed in all sorts of IoT products.

The ability to authenticate and remotely manage millions of networked, automated devices and equipment is becoming pervasive – from factory floors, to hospital operating rooms, to residential homes – including billions of objects and devices from refrigerators, watches, wearables to wine bottles – everything that can connect and communicate via the Internet.

About WISeKey

WISeKey (SIX Swiss Exchange: WIHN) is a leading global cybersecurity company currently deploying large scale digital identity ecosystems with a patented process. WISeKey’s Swiss based cryptographic Root of Trust (“RoT”) provides secure authentication and identification, in both physical and virtual environments, for the Internet of Things, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence. The WISeKey RoT serves as a common trust anchor to ensure the integrity of on-line transactions among objects and between objects and people. For more information, visit www.wisekey.com.

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