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SINGAPORE \u2013 Lim Meng Liang, 38, spends most of his time solving the impossible.<\/p>\n
As a specialist in Diophantine equations \u2013 notoriously complex mathematical problems famous for having no solutions \u2013 Lim operates in a field most regarded as academic and esoteric.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could have just framed the patent and kept it on the wall,\u201d said the National University of Singapore (NUS) applied mathematics alumnus, who runs his own investment firm.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut after some hard thinking and discussions with my brother, we decided to do something with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2023, Lim joined forces with his older brother Ken Lin \u2013 who quit his 15-year finance career \u2013 to found Aires Applied Quantum Technology.<\/p>\n
The brothers have different surnames due to an error made by their parents when registering Lin\u2019s birth certificate.<\/p>\n
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<\/span><\/a>, is now actively looking to list in markets such as the US, Singapore or Japan to raise \u201can eight-digit figure\u201d to market its product globally.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n LionGuard works through a unique encryption key generated by the sender and sent to the intended recipient via the app. The recipient needs to use the LionGuard app to unlock the file.<\/p>\n The app, currently in the beta phase, has over 100 subscribers, including enterprise customers in the oil and gas, commodities trading, education technology, cloud services, banking and financial services sectors.<\/p>\n Lin, 45, declined to reveal more, citing confidentiality agreements.<\/p>\n Aires is working towards lowering the subscription fee to attract more small and medium-sized enterprises such as law and accounting firms, food and beverage chains, family offices and larger firms that deal with sensitive data, said Lin.<\/p>\n Current encryption technology relies on mathematical algorithms to secure data, but the mathematical equations can be easily cracked by quantum computers.<\/p>\n \u201cA standard computer may take 1,000 years to crack current encryption methods, but it will take just two days for quantum computers,\u201d said Lin.<\/p>\n Encryption based on Diophantine equations, on the other hand, are practically impossible to solve even by quantum computers, he added.<\/p>\n Altogether, Aires holds four international patents for advanced data encryption.<\/p>\n Other patents involve encrypting 2D code such as barcodes and QR codes, which is currently being piloted in Europe.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are particularly relevant for high-security use cases in payment, logistics, supply chain authentication and product tagging,\u201d said Lin, who had previously headed product and investment advisory at a private bank.<\/p>\n Aires is among a growing list of quantum tech start-ups that have set up shop in Singapore, fuelled by a $37 billion budget unveiled in 2025 to drive research, development and testing of frontier technologies including quantum tech.<\/p>\n They include home-grown start-up Squareroot8 Technologies, whose technology uses the inherent randomness of quantum mechanics to generate a string of random numbers that is impossible for hackers to crack.<\/p>\n In January, local start-up Horizon Quantum set up Singapore\u2019s first commercial quantum computer for hire in one-north, boosting the nation\u2019s goal of achieving breakthrough applications.<\/p>\n Located in MacPherson, Aires now has eight employees in software development, marketing and business operations.<\/p>\n The siblings\u2019 parents initially questioned why Lin was giving up a stable career in finance.<\/p>\n \u201cThey asked me whether I knew what I was doing, and if I should involve my older brother,\u201d said Lim, the maths whiz.<\/p>\n But Lin has not looked back since as he felt the risk was worth taking.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2023, when we went for our first tech event and shared that we were building quantum cryptography, the first question I got from the audience was whether this was a new form of cryptocurrency,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cToday, I don\u2019t get such questions any more \u2013 there\u2019s been an obvious shift. Organisations are now asking practical questions about integration, deployment timelines and long-term readiness.<\/p>\n \u201cWe see this as a very encouraging sign of growing momentum in the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SINGAPORE \u2013 Lim Meng Liang, 38, spends most of his time solving the impossible. As a specialist in Diophantine equations \u2013 notoriously complex mathematical problems…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/62424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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