The Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) market is poised for expansion, with global revenues set to reach $14.9 billion by 2030, according to the latest ABI Research worldwide market study.
This surge reflects a dynamic era for digital security, shaped by the proliferation of interconnected devices, the acceleration of cryptoagility, and the growing imperative of device identity management.
PKI Security Market Development
PKI has long underpinned digital trust, securing sensitive data and authenticating identities across networks. Today's business technology landscape has dramatically shifted.
Enterprises are rapidly integrating IoT, cloud services, and AI-powered platforms, making the management of digital certificates and identity lifecycles both strategically essential and operationally complex.
The threat landscape continues to change as malicious actors exploit new vulnerabilities, pushing organizations toward shorter certificate lifecycles and the adoption of quantum-resistant algorithms.
This escalating complexity and regulatory environment are major drivers behind PKI's growth trajectory.
Market Study Highlights: Key Stats and Insights
- ABI Research forecasts that PKI revenues will be propelled by the need for cryptoagility and digital identity assurance in a cloud and AI-driven economy.
- The PKI-IoT market segment alone is expected to reach $5 billion by 2030, as organizations demand scalable, device-centric trust networks and automated certificate management.
- Large enterprises and small/medium enterprises are accelerating PKI investments to support secure communications, streamline onboarding, and protect sensitive data. PKI solutions, including container-based certificate lifecycle management, are in high demand across banking, healthcare, manufacturing, and government sectors.
- Regulatory updates — such as Europe’s PSD3 and U.S. HIPAA revisions — are enforcing stricter compliance on digital certificates and identity management, especially in critical industries. This environment pushes companies to adopt agile PKI platforms with automated, policy-driven certificate rotation and management.
- By 2025, there will be over 55 billion connected IoT devices, making PKI fundamental to device-to-device secure communications, authentication, and data integrity.
- The market’s evolution towards quantum-resistant cryptography is evident, with leading vendors integrating post-quantum algorithms and agile switching capabilities to protect PKI systems against emerging vulnerabilities.
Key Growth Drivers and Market Use Cases
- Organizations face heightened demand for cryptoagility — that is, the ability to rapidly update cryptographic methods and protocols in response to evolving threats, regulatory mandates, and the future onset of quantum computing.
- Quantum security, once a niche concern, is now mainstream. Enterprises are investing in crypto-agile PKI systems capable of seamlessly migrating to new standards without disrupting business continuity.
- The explosion in device and non-human identities — ranging from IoT sensors and autonomous vehicles to cloud containers — requires scalable PKI solutions for authenticating and securing every interaction.
- Global banks, e-health platforms, and manufacturers are transitioning to embedded PKI and cloud-native certificate management.
- Cloud computing platforms like AWS IoT and Azure IoT Hub increasingly integrate PKI-based authentication, offering best-practice examples of device-level security enforcement.
- A lack of specialized PKI expertise and the operational complexity of managing millions of certificates are driving the adoption of managed PKI and Certificate Lifecycle Management (CLM) services.
- Industry players such as Keyfactor, Venafi, DigiCert, Entrust, and GlobalSign are expanding offerings tailored to these needs, from automated certificate issuance to real-time asset monitoring.
Looking ahead, several significant trends will shape the PKI market:
AI-driven automation: Vendors are leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate PKI processes, reduce error rates, and optimize certificate lifecycle management.
Quantum resilience: As quantum computing threats loom closer, the demand for solutions offering quantum-resistant encryption and crypto-agility will surge, creating new market segments for secure communications and data privacy.
Device-centric security: The growth of IoT and edge computing will make scalable, distributed PKI architectures indispensable, especially as devices proliferate in healthcare, manufacturing, smart cities, and autonomous mobility.
Regulatory evolution: Expanding regulations will force organizations to enhance transparency, auditability, and identity verification, driving ongoing PKI adoption and technology upgrades.
Outlook for PKI Applications Growth
The PKI market is at a pivotal moment, driven by sweeping changes in technology, threat vectors, and compliance demands.
"Rising appetite for investment in solutions that support increased cryptoagility, such as PKI, will only persist as the threat of quantum computing advances," said Aisling Dawson, industry analyst at ABI Research.
With revenue expected to nearly double in just five years, organizations that prioritize cryptoagility, device identity, and managed PKI services will capture the greatest security and business advantages.
That being said, I believe that as PKI evolves to meet emerging challenges and opportunities, it will remain the backbone of digital trust in an increasingly Global Networked Economy.