The U.K. Ministry of Defence has picked Arqit Quantum to join the country’s Multi-Domain Integrated Systems (MDIS) Project, which is integrating military data systems and other remote systems around the world.
The U.K. agency has a developing requirement for the creation or adoption of a set of common standards and/or architecture for interfaces, data transfer and data management that can be used both for upgrades to legacy systems and future procurement to enable swift and simple interoperation of systems.
Arqit will focus on areas of Data Management and Fusion, and Communications Bearers, Network Architecture and Services, according to a statement, and the work will involve demonstrations of multi-domain integrated systems, which may include autonomous and swarming technologies.
Security is a key aspect of Arqit’s involvement in the project. The company provides a quantum-based encryption platform-as-a-service, which will come in handy for a projet in which security is of paramount importance.
“MDIS will be Secure by design: Security shall be embedded in thinking throughout all architectures, designs and implementations and shall follow a set of security principles such as zero-trust, encryption, least privilege and need-to-know by default,” the Ministry of Defence said. “This ensures that any connectivity capability is secure, without requiring later rework to consider security.”
“We are delighted to sign this contract with the MOD,” said Arqit Founder, Chairman and CEO, David Williams. “Given recent progress announced with other Five-Eyes partners, interoperability is a significant advantage for us and crucial to the success of any MDI (known as JADC2 in USA) initiative to support future joint operations. Military Data systems need to be automated, interconnected, and interoperable across multiple domains globally. They require machine-to-machine as well as human-to-human and human-to-machine interfaces of unprecedented scale and connectivity and need a modern security architecture to match.”
This is not the first time Arqit has been involved in a national defense organization project. Just two months ago, the company signed a cooperative research and development agreement with the U.S. Air Force.