EU’s €1 Billion Quantum Technology Flagship Developing Quantum Encryption Protocols to Secure Internet

(NovusLight.com) Scientists at the EU’s €1 billion Quantum Technology (QT) Flagship initiative have developed novel prototypes that use quantum encryption protocols to create the most secure transmission of sensitive information through the internet.
The QT Flagship is supporting four consortia that are making our data highly secure: the CiViQ consortium has developed efficient QKD protocols to secure this critical digital information; researchers at QRANGE have created quantum random number generators that can be implemented in such protocols; and UNIQORN scientists are searching for ways to miniaturise QKD down to the chip-scale to be easily integrated into any consumer device. Finally, researchers from QIA are aiming to put this all together, hardware and software, to build the future quantum internet.
One of the Quantum Flagship’s key objectives is to see the many components being developed by the QF-funded projects to become essential elements of the quantum internet. As part of this objective, the Quantum Internet Alliance (QIA) project aims to build a network for transmitting quantum information throughout the entire continent.
Markus Wilkens, Coordinator of the Quantum Flagship Coordination office, explained, “Supporting large-scale research and innovation projects, the QT Flagship has already launched 20 projects with an allocated €132 million in its ‘ramp-up’ phase, the first three-year part of the Flagship, running from October 2018 to September 2021.”