Emerging Technologies Such as Quantum Photonic Chips Are Potentially Disruptive to Space Industry

(TechGoonDu) Emerging technologies, such as quantum networks, can deliver breakthroughs that enable improved ways to connect to one another in space as well as on Earth, according to experts in Singapore. It is not just blockchain and AI that are potentially disruptive to the space industry. With quantum photonic chips becoming a reality, they can be building blocks for the quantum Internet, a network that sends signals not by radio waves but photons of infrared light.
Dr James Grieve, a senior research fellow at Singapore’s Centre for Quantum Technologies, said that increasingly there will be a need for more secure communications, which is an area that the space industry can play a larger role in.
Indeed, the space industry appears to be entering a phase where there are multiple technologies just waiting to be deployed to make a real difference, according to several experts speaking at a recent space industry event.
In 2017, in an early effort, the Chinese sent a quantum satellite into space, where it is easier to send such photons across vast distances than back on Earth.