Quantum communications leap out of the lab

Abstract

China begins work on super-secure network as ‘real-world’ trial successfully sends quantum keys and data. Cybersecurity is a step closer to the dream of sending data securely over long distances using quantum physics — spurred by two developments. This week, China will start installing the world’s longest quantum-communications network, which includes a 2,000-kilometre link between Beijing and Shanghai. And a study jointly announced this week by the companies Toshiba, BT and ADVA, with the UK National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, reports “encouraging” results from a network field trial, suggesting that quantum communications could be feasible on existing fibre-optic infrastructure. Conventional data-encryption systems rely on the exchange of a secret ‘key’ — in binary 0s and 1s — to encrypt and decrypt information. But the security of such a communication channel can be undermined if a hacker ‘eavesdrops’ on this key during transmission. Quantum communications use a technology called quantum key distribution (QKD), which harnesses the subatomic properties of photons to “remove this weakest link of the current system”, says Grégoire Ribordy, co-founder and chief executive of ID Quantique, a quantum-cryptography company in Geneva, Switzerland