ZeroTier has announced the release candidate 2 (RC2) for ZeroTier Quantum, its end-to-end quantum-secure networking platform. This milestone marks the final testing phase, positioning the platform one step away from general availability (GA).

ZeroTier Quantum addresses the looming threat quantum computing poses to traditional encryption by meeting the NIST and NSA’s highest CNSA 2.0 standards, meeting or exceeding the post-quantum cryptography (PQC) requirements defined by the U.S. government for regulated industries beginning in 2027.

“Reaching our final release candidate milestone brings us to the precipice of a new era in network security,” said Andrew Gault, CEO of ZeroTier.

“ZeroTier Quantum isn’t an incremental update; it’s a fundamental paradigm shift. We’ve successfully added quantum-resistant cryptographic agility into our core architecture, while increasing the performance and resilience our customers depend upon. As we finalize our path to general availability, we’re giving organizations the tools to protect their data today against the quantum threats of tomorrow.”

ZeroTier Quantum’s roadmap includes finalization of a third-party code audit and penetration test ahead of commercial availability. Parallel cryptographic validation and support for AI platforms are also nearing delivery.

Delivering security, performance, and flexibility

ZeroTier Quantum RC2 delivers on the brand’s foundational pillars of security, performance, and flexibility, providing quantum defense capabilities without layers of operational and implementation friction.

To maximize security, the platform neutralizes “harvest now, decrypt later” and “trust now, forge later” threats using a zero-trust, memory-safe architecture built in Rust, and leveraging the ZeroTier Protocol (ZTP). By pairing ML-KEM-1024 and hybrid AES-384 cryptography with mutual identity authentication, it delivers software-defined end-to-end protection across all key attack vectors. This defense-in-depth approach ensures seamless compliance with FIPS and CNSA 2.0 standards.

Performance is driven by a peer-to-peer mesh architecture that uses automatic path selection to eliminate bottlenecks, bypass congestion, and offer high resilience. Engineered for maximum efficiency, the platform delivers 30% lower CPU utilization when compared to similar software-defined networking platforms.

Additionally, its lightweight control plane and intelligent buffering cut memory overhead, ensuring high-performance scalability. Built-in hardware cryptographic acceleration and parallelized transport also ensure high throughput without introducing network latency.

Mission-critical flexibility extends across deployment privacy levels and network topologies. An infrastructure-agnostic policy fabric combined with true Layer 2 virtualization emulates a global Ethernet switch, allowing the platform to adapt instantly to any configuration or moving endpoint. This ensures seamless execution across public cloud, sovereign, or air-gapped deployments while extending secure downstream connectivity to edge and IoT devices incapable of running native agents.

Market adoption and commercial momentum

ZeroTier announced that it’s secured numerous commercial and proof-of-concept (PoC) relationships ahead of the GA release. These engagements span highly specialized and high-stakes industries, ranging from tactical networks to drone operations to critical manufacturing.

“Our strategy has been clear and the marketplace traction we’re seeing with ZeroTier Quantum in its core configuration ahead of GA has been brisk,” said Robert Stevenson, CCO at ZeroTier.

“Our securing commercial and PoC relationships across defense, enterprise cloud, and critical infrastructure proves that quantum-resilience is no longer a theoretical concern. It’s an operational requirement. Organizations running COMSEC-grade communications or managing high-value assets recognize that waiting is a risk they don’t need to take. ZeroTier Quantum gives them immediate acceleration in their quantum journey and future-proofing for their networks today.”