The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) of the Kingdom of Bahrain has partnered with SandboxAQ, a global leader in AI-driven cybersecurity and cryptographic management, aiming to establishing a nationwide cybersecurity modernization framework.
The partnership marks one of the world’s first large-scale commitments to transitioning towards a quantum-safe economy. As a founding member of the UNICC AI Hub on Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC), SandboxAQ will support Bahrain in securing sovereign data, critical infrastructure and sensitive government and private-sector systems against rapidly evolving cyber, cryptographic, and quantum computing threats.
The announcement comes as governments worldwide prepare for ‘Q-Day‘, when cryptographically relevant quantum computers (CRQCs) could break today’s common encryption.
While experts predict CRQCs may emerge as early as 2029, the threat is already present through ‘harvest-now, decrypt-later’ attacks, where adversaries steal encrypted data today to decrypt once quantum capabilities exist. For governments, this risks classified communications, diplomatic cables, defense data, national identity records, and decades of sensitive archives.
Under the partnership, Bahrain will deploy SandboxAQ’s AQtive Guard platform, an AI-powered cybersecurity solution designed for safe, large-scale AI agent deployment and post-quantum defense modernization. The platform provides full visibility, assessment, and remediation of vulnerabilities from weak encryption and the proliferation of AI agents and non-human identities (NHIs). Deployment will cover more than 60 ministry environments across the Kingdom, enabling large-scale cryptographic security management.
Shaikh Salman bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, CEO of the NCSC, said that the partnership with SandboxAQ is a key step in protecting Bahrain’s sovereign data, intellectual property, and digital assets from cyber threats, supporting security and economic growth.
Mohammed Aboul-Magd, VP of Product, Cybersecurity at SandboxAQ, noted that Bahrain is leading by combining policy with cutting-edge technology, creating a framework to quickly address new vulnerabilities and stay ahead of attackers.
This initiative forms a core pillar of Bahrain’s long-term cybersecurity strategy and reinforces the Kingdom’s commitment to safeguarding national data, promoting economic resilience and accelerating secure digital transformation.
