Abstract We study 3D pure Einstein quantum gravity with negative cosmological constant, in the regime where the AdS radius l is of the order of the Planck scale. Specifically, when the Brown-Henneaux central charge c = 3l/2GN (GN is the 3D Newton constant) equals c = 1/2, we establish duality between 3D gravity and 2D Ising conformal field theory by matching gravity and conformal field theory partition functions for AdS spacetimes with general asymptotic boundaries. This duality was suggested by a genus-one calculation of Castro et al. [Phys. Rev. D85 (2012) 024032]. Extension beyond genus-one requires new mathematical results based on 3D Topological Quantum Field Theory; these turn out to uniquely select the c = 1/2 theory among all those with c < 1, extending the previous results of Castro et al. Previous work suggests the reduction of the calculation of the gravity partition function to a problem of summation over the orbits of the mapping class group action on a “vacuum seedâ€. But whether or not the summation is well-defined for the general case was unknown before this work. Amongst all theories with Brown-Henneaux central charge c < 1, the sum is finite and unique only when c = 1/2, corresponding to a dual Ising conformal field theory on the asymptotic boundary. © 2020, The Author(s).