Mumbai, 28 September 2026: The National Insurance Academy (NIA), Pune, organised the 22nd Insurance Summit on the theme “AI-Enabled Quantum Readiness for Indian Insurance Ecosystem” on Monday at Hotel President, Cuffe Parade, Mumbai. The summit brought together senior representatives from the insurance sector, government, financial services, technology, academia and the quantum technology ecosystem to discuss the implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Quantum Computing for the Indian insurance industry.
The summit was organised at a time when rapid developments in AI and quantum computing are creating new opportunities as well as emerging risks for the financial and insurance sectors. Discussions focused on the implications of these technologies for cybersecurity, cryptographic resilience, data protection and long-term policyholder trust, along with the need for insurance organisations to assess their preparedness for the emerging technological landscape.
Mr. B. C. Patnaik, Director, National Insurance Academy, said “The summit was aimed at bringing emerging research and global developments into practical discussions for the Indian insurance sector. The deliberations focused on helping organisations understand emerging risks and develop a roadmap for quantum readiness, cybersecurity
resilience and technological preparedness.”
Dr. Debasish Prusty, Additional Secretary, Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, said “The time for any incremental measure has gone. We must adopt a proactive, holistic and collaborative approach to enhance cyber resilience that includes quantum.”
Emphasising the importance of maintaining human oversight alongside technological advancement, Mr. Kalyanaraman Rajaraman, Chairperson, International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA), said “Technology performs transactions, algorithms assess risk, and platforms deliver services—but trust, accountability, and judgment must remain firmly human.”
A key area of discussion at the summit was the concept of “Q-Day”, referring to the point at which sufficiently powerful quantum computers could potentially compromise some of the cryptographic systems currently used to protect digital information. Given the volume of sensitive customer, financial and policy-related information handled by insurance organisations, the potential impact of quantum computing on data security and existing encryption systems was
examined during the summit.
GURU VIJAY SHANKER
