WISeKey upgrades its WISeCoin blockchain technology with AI capabilities and integrates physical and digital world in terms of value

WISeKey upgrades its WISeCoin blockchain technology with AI capabilities and integrates physical and digital world in terms of value

AI takes the role of adaptive decision engine, offers meaningful insights to better understand objects and processes, and makes autonomous decisions based upon machine learning scripts

ZUG, Switzerland – December 17, 2020 – Wisekey International Holding ("WISeKey”, SIX: WIHN, NASDAQ: WKEY), a leading cybersecurity IoT company, today announced that its WISeCoin blockchain technology has been upgraded with AI capabilities.  AI allows the integration of physical world (objects, places and people) with digital world (software and analytics), creates meaningful insights and makes autonomous decisions based upon machine learning scripts.

 WISeCoin AG is a Special Purpose vehicle created by WISeKey in Zug to build the infrastructure for secure intra-object interactions and transactions using AI and blockchain. WISeKey applied and received regulatory clearance from Swiss financial market regulator, FINMA to issue a Security Token Offering (STO) in 2018.  The launch of this project is now scheduled for 2021 coinciding with the launch of Swiss Digital Exchange (SDX) in Switzerland by SIX Group (https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-digital-stock-exchange-branches-out-into-singapore/46210156).

Switzerland is one of several countries exploring the promised advantages of distributed ledger technology (DLT), a digital system closely related to blockchain. This would allow company shares and a range of other financial assets to be created and traded more efficiently. The plan is for WISeCoin AG issue a Token Offering in compliance with applicable Swiss law in 2021.

WISeCoin AG was formally established in August 2018 to secure the blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT) world, which due to its continuously increasing size and complexity, is constantly vulnerable to cyber threats. WISeCoin AG benefits from the WISeKey architecture as the first and only vertically integrated platform combining proprietary cybersecurity software and secure microcontrollers designed to protect connected devices against evolving cyber threats.

Through its infrastructure, WISeKey is uniquely positioned to be the first mover in bringing legally enforceable transactions, certified by globally recognized WISeID and EIDAS accreditations, to blockchain.

To accelerate the pace of the implementation, WISeCoin AG was established to manage all blockchain initiatives and operations of WISeKey. With a strong emphasis on cybersecurity, WISeCoin’s mission is to pave the way for the daily use of 4th Industrial Revolution technologies in the IoT sector through blockchain.

Powered by WISeKey Semiconductors and secured by WISeKey Root of Trust ("RoT”) and Public Key Infrastructure ("PKI”), WISeCoin offers connected objects the ability to identify and authenticate each other, initiate, and then complete secure transactions.

Each connected object is equipped with WISeKey’s Secure Element consisting of a tamper resistant silicon chip, called VaultIC184. The state-of-the-art secure microcontroller, which can be easily integrated in any object by the manufacturer, is offered as a provisioning service to transfer the burden of device personalization to WISeKey’s secure Personalization Center. It is a next-generation technology designed from the ground up to be the data and value transfer layer for the Machine Economy.

The integration of arago into the WISekey platform upgrades the WISeCoin clockchain with AI capabilities by allowing the connection between the physical and digital world in terms of value. AI takes the role of adaptive decision engine, offers meaningful insights to better understand object behaviors and processes and makes autonomous decisions upon machine learning scripts.

Furthermore, the WISeCoin project will benefit from the recent joining  of WISeKey to Hyperledger, the multi-venture, multi-stakeholder effort hosted by the Linux Foundation. Hyperledger is an open source community focused on developing a suite of stable frameworks, tools and libraries for enterprise-grade blockchain deployment.

WISeKey’s technology supports an ecosystem of connected devices and creates a secured platform to help these devices become intelligent and trusted, able to identify, authenticate and verify each other, gather and analyze data and then safely share with other devices. As a pioneer of blockchain technologies, we are committed to continue our journey of creating cutting-edge applications designed to solve peoples’ problems, transform businesses and create a better world.”

WISeKey’s blockchain-based solutions aim to override the need for a central authority by distributing information previously held in a centralized repository across a network of participating nodes. While blockchain is not owned by one individual or organization, anyone with an internet connection (and access, in the case of private blockchains) can make use of it, help maintain and verify it. When a transaction is made on a blockchain, it is added to a group of transactions, known as "blocks.” Each block of transactions is added to the database in a chronological, immutable chain. Each block is stamped with a unique cryptographic code, which ensures that records are not counterfeited or changed. The blockchain approach lacks legal validity in most jurisdictions, which only recognize the digital signatures as equally valid that manuscript signatures when generated using traditional PKI technology.

Earlier this year, WISeKey established the Trust Protocol Association (the Association) aiming to create a new Trust Protocol for the Internet by combining traditional Cryptographic Trust Models with permissioned blockchain transactions through strong authentication provided by the OISTE WISeKey RoT, a new Global Trust platform and an ecosystem of governmental, technology and business partners, each representing a certification node with the possibility of having multiple certifications nodes per country.

The combination of RoT with blockchain generates a new Trust Protocol in order to allow the blockchain to scale trusted transactions with embedded security, ensuring that each transaction submitted to the blockchain is digitally signed using keys that are trusted by the RoT and combining a vertical trust process verified by a reputable Third Trusted Party with the inherent decentralized trust provided by the blockchain.

This dual Trust Model solves one of the biggest challenges for the internet, which is to bridge the currently fragmented trust domains including existing, incompatible national RoTs used by many governments. By combining RoT with blockchain, our innovative Trust Protocol enables a wide range of use cases and business models that simply are not possible with using just current blockchain-based solutions.

About WISeKey

WISeKey (SIX Swiss Exchange: WIHN) is a leading global cybersecurity company currently deploying large scale digital identity ecosystems for people and objects using Blockchain, AI and IoT respecting the Human as the Fulcrum of the Internet. WISeKey Microprocessors Secures the pervasive computing shaping today’s Internet of Everything. WISeKey IoT has an install base of over 1.5 billion microchips in virtually all IoT sectors (connected cars, smart cities, drones, agricultural sensors, anti-counterfeiting, smart lighting, servers, computers, mobile phones, crypto tokens etc.).  WISeKey is uniquely positioned to be at the edge of IoT as our semiconductors produce a huge amount of Big Data that, when analyzed with Artificial Intelligence (AI), can help industrial applications to predict the failure of their equipment before it happens.

Our technology is Trusted by the OISTE/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 online transactions among objects and between objects and people. For more information, visit www.wisekey.com.

Press and investor contacts:

WISeKey International Holding Ltd
Company Contact:  Carlos Moreira
Chairman & CEO
Tel: +41 22 594 3000
info@wisekey.com        

WISeKey Investor Relations (US)
Contact:  Lena Cati
The Equity Group Inc.
Tel: +1 212 836-9611
lcati@equityny.com

Disclaimer:
This communication expressly or implicitly contains certain forward-looking statements concerning WISeKey International Holding Ltd and its business. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of WISeKey International Holding Ltd to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. WISeKey International Holding Ltd is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities, and it does not constitute an offering prospectus within the meaning of article 652a or article 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations or a listing prospectus within the meaning of the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange. Investors must rely on their own evaluation of WISeKey and its securities, including the merits and risks involved. Nothing contained herein is, or shall be relied on as, a promise or representation as to the future performance of WISeKey.