open-quantum-safe/oqs-provider

The oqs-provider is a critical piece of infrastructure in the global transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC). It acts as the bridge between liboqs (the industry-standard library for quantum-safe algorithms) and OpenSSL 3.x, which powers the vast majority of the web's encryption. With 461 stars and a high fork count (165) relative to its niche, it demonstrates significant institutional adoption and trust. The project's age (5+ years) and the complexity of the underlying mathematics create a deep moat. Defensibility is high (8) because implementing these algorithms correctly is difficult, and achieving integration with OpenSSL's provider architecture is non-trivial. While cloud giants like AWS (with s2n-tls) and Google (with BoringSSL) maintain their own stacks, oqs-provider remains the neutral, reference-grade implementation for the broader Linux/Open Source ecosystem. Frontier labs pose almost zero risk as this is a low-level systems security requirement, not an AI capability. Displacement is unlikely because this project is actively implementing the final NIST PQC standards (ML-KEM, ML-DSA); it is the tool that will replace legacy systems, rather than being replaced itself.