The RSA Conference took place in San Francisco between April 28 and May 1. The event has lured ever larger crowd from around the world with the record 45,000 attendees with 650 exhibitors demonstrating innovations in cybersecurity. I had another opportunity to meet a number of customers and partners, sharing and discussing what opportunities lie ahead of us. I spent some time at the event, overwhelmed by the energy and enthusiasm to explore the possibility of innovation and collaboration through technologies and the strength of communities. What was displayed at the event demonstrated both the pace of innovation in cybersecurity and the urgency for collective action. As a community, we are not just responding to threats—we are shaping a new future of proactive, integrated, and intelligent security.
AI and Cybersecurity
On the show floor, AI was everywhere—not just a buzzword but a foundational element across threat detection, response orchestration, and zero-trust architecture.
We are entering a new era where machines are making decisions faster on our behalf. The question isn’t whether we will use AI, but how responsibly we will deploy it.
Post Quantum Cryptography
One of the areas I pay attention to is cryptography. This year, significantly more displays and discussions could be seen on the show floor on Post Quantum Cryptography. NIST’s advancements in defining the new quantum-resistant algorithms last summer surely encouraged the industry to provide a roadmap of technologies and solutions for new algorithms. But the conversations from general awareness and urgency to prepare for the arrival or threat derived from quantum computers were very noticeable throughout the event.
Innovation That Matters
Among the many announcements and demos, a few trends drew my attention:
- Hardware-enabled security is making a comeback—not as a replacement for software, but as a trusted foundation. We are on track bridging the gap between silicon and software. Confidential computing is one example of establishing a strong hardware root of trust.
- Security at the edge is no longer theoretical. With the requirements for IoT and AI at the edge, securing data in these distributed environments is now our imperative.
- Cyber resilience is taking priority over prevention alone. It’s not just about keeping the bad guys out—it’s about ensuring continuity when the breach happens.
Looking ahead
I felt good about the opportunity available at the edge. While challenging, workloads are moving to, more values are generated at, and the demand for versatile and intelligent security is growing fast at the edge.
Earlier this year, we launched Intel® Xeon® 6 SoC. This Xeon-based SoC addresses many technical challenges in deploying capable compute platforms at the edge. More compute capabilities combined with a unique set of accelerators and I/O devices into one chip allow dense form factor designs specifically required at the edge. It drives workload consolidation, where AI-enabled enterprise applications and AI-enabled network and security applications reside in one server platform. We expect a variety of edge server designs featuring Xeon 6 SoC to debut toward the latter part of this year.
The Intel® NetSec Accelerator Reference Design, which enables an Intel processor-based server in a PCIe add-in-card form factor, is another strategy we have to enrich and protect edge computing. Our customers had solutions based on this innovation on the show floor—from deploying secure enterprise 5G services at the edge with PQC to deploying on-prem/ private SASE. As part of the ever-growing need for more compute and workload consolidation at the edge, this technology adds compute resources as well as isolating network security workloads from the hosting server running mission-critical enterprise applications. The reference design now features Intel Xeon 6 SoC.
The “Harvest Now Decrypt Later” threat is real today even before cryptographically relevant quantum computers (CRQC) are available. We are well-positioned for three approaches to address the threat from CRQC. One is to continue providing compute performance for existing quantum-safe algorithms like AES-256, making the performance penalty near non-existent so that stronger cryptography can be applied everywhere. In addition, we strengthen this proposition with an encryption key management solution to protect from CRQC attacks. The second approach is to provide compute for newly defined algorithms that require far more complex math for encryption, including hardware compute capabilities and software development. The last and not the least is to protect firmware, BIOS, and other configuration integrity of the hardware platform from quantum attacks.
Many of our customers were on the show floor. I am highlighting a few that my team members collaborated on for the show floor:
- Arqit: Arqit also demonstrated its PQC solution deployed in confidential computing, adding further security by protecting its quantum-resistant crypto key management executed inside a trusted domain created by Intel® Trust Domain Extensions (Intel® TDX). Read more here: https://arqit.uk/resources/data-sovereignty-with-confidential-computing-and-networking
- Confidential Computing Consortium: Several of my Intel colleagues were representing the confidential computing use cases as well as the Consortium on the show floor. Confidential computing is a great example of where the hardware security technologies meet the software. Collaborations are driving the use of this advanced security technology.
- ECS and Arqit: Post-Quantum Security Mobile Classified Data Access – At Arqit booth, ECS demonstrated an edge reference architecture for private 5G network with PQC. The reference architecture has an option to deploy on Intel NetSec Accelerator Reference Design to make the deployment easier. Find more in the paper we published https://builders.intel.com/solutionslibrary/post-quantum-security-for-mobile-classified-data-access
- Mirror Security: The collaboration with Intel to strengthen security against autonomous AI agents with homomorphic encryption was on display at the show floor. Find out more https://mirrorsecurity.io/blog/intel-collaboration
- Senao: Senao brought an early sample of their next generation “server-on-card” based on Intel NetSec Accelerator Reference Design, featuring Intel Xeon 6 SoC. The sample was on display at the Arqit and Versa booths.
- Versa: Versa has a unique appliance based on Intel NetSec Accelerator Reference Design. The Intel Xeon 6 SoC sample from Senao was displayed at the booth, demonstrating synergy with Intel’s edge compute strategy.
- Webroot: Our team works with Webroot to provide AI compute resources for BrightCloud CSI, which produces real-time and comprehensive web page characterization. Webroot touched upon the topic at the show, but will provide more details in the future.
- Lanner: Another solution vendor aligned with Intel’s edge computing strategy. An edge platform based on Intel Xeon 6 SoC and a server-in-card based on Intel NetSec Accelerator Reference Design were on display.
What did you find most interesting about the RSA Conference 2025?
Please also read: Looking Forward to RSAC 2025
Bob Ghaffari is currently Vice President, Network & Edge Group, General Manager, Enterprise and Cloud Division at Intel Corporation. He is responsible for working with key customers and partners to enable best-in-class solutions for the Edge and Cloud with a focus on network and security solution use cases. Ghaffari’s organization works closely with enterprises, service providers and industry partners to deliver agile, secure, scalable and cost-effective network and edge solutions for multi and hybrid cloud implementations. Prior to this position, Ghaffari has held several positions in product development, business development and marketing strategy. Bob has an EECS degree from UC Berkeley and a MBA from Santa Clara University.