SINGAPORE – Lim Meng Liang, 38, spends most of his time solving the impossible.
As a specialist in Diophantine equations – notoriously complex mathematical problems famous for having no solutions – Lim operates in a field most regarded as academic and esoteric.
But when he secured his first US patent in 2022 for novel methods to exploit these unsolvable equations to encrypt data, he created a cryptographic wall that is practically unbreakable for hackers.
“I could have just framed the patent and kept it on the wall,” said the National University of Singapore (NUS) applied mathematics alumnus, who runs his own investment firm.
“But after some hard thinking and discussions with my brother, we decided to do something with it.”
In 2023, Lim joined forces with his older brother Ken Lin – who quit his 15-year finance career – to found Aires Applied Quantum Technology.
The brothers have different surnames due to an error made by their parents when registering Lin’s birth certificate.
The start-up, which has secured more than US$2 million (S$2.6 million) from private investors and local agencies such as Enterprise Singapore, is now actively looking to list in markets such as the US, Singapore or Japan to raise “an eight-digit figure” to market its product globally.
Its flagship product developed over the last three years, LionGuard, is a mobile app that encrypts files stored on devices or in the cloud or networks. With a monthly subscription of $388 per user, it is designed to be a fuss-free tool to protect enterprises and users from cyberthreats enabled by quantum computers.
Quantum computers, which experts project to generate no errors by 2030, are tipped to be able to break current encryption methods much faster than traditional computers.
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