Thoth: Reliable Orchestration of Post-Quantum Secure Communication in Multi-Architecture Edge Clusters

Thoth is an open-source, Kubernetes-native orchestration framework for deploying post-quantum cryptography (PQC) across heterogeneous, multi-Architecture edge clusters. It integrates the NIST-selected CRYSTALS-Dilithium (signatures) and CRYSTALS-Kyber (key encapsulation) to mitigate quantum-era threats. Built on lightweight Kubernetes (K3s) with MQTT messaging, Thoth enables containerized cryptographic services under realistic edge constraints. In prototypes spanning TRK1 RISC-V (signing) and Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W (verification) nodes, Dilithium signing averaged 6.5 ± 0.3 ms ms and verification 4.1 pm 0.2 ms; Kyber encapsulation and decapsulation averaged 6.7 ± 0.3 ms and 4.2 ± 0.2 ms, respectively. End-To-end secure telemetry-including transport and orchestration-remained under 15 ms on average, with the 95th percentile below 50 ms. Verification nodes sustained less than 1.2 W of average power, and pod scaling exhibited near-linear throughput. Emphasizing modularity, observability (Helm, Prometheus, Grafana), and resilience to node/pod failures, Thoth provides quantifiable latency and power guarantees for PQC at the edge. The framework establishes a replicable path toward reliable, resource-Aware, and quantum-resilient communication pipelines for secure telemetry, embedded systems, and multi-node edge environments. We provide manifests and scripts to support reproduction.