Future Quantum Internet Offers Decisive Advantages for Certain Applications

(Express.co.uk) The Trump administration’s 2021 budget boosts spending on quantum information science by about 20 percent, to $237 million. David Awschalom, a quantum engineer at the University of Chicago told CNBC: “That level of funding will enable us to begin to develop the groundwork for sophisticated, practical, and high-impact quantum networks.
Delft University’s Ronald Hanson said: “The main feature of a quantum network is that you are sending quantum information instead of classical information”. Classical information deals in bits that have values of either 0 or 1.Quantum information, however, uses quantum bits, or qubits, which can be in a superposition of both 0 and 1 at the same time.
A quantum network leverages the counterintuitive behaviour of nature’s particles to manipulate and share information in entirely new ways, with the potential to reinvent fields including cybersecurity and material science.
While the traditional internet for general use isn’t going anywhere, a quantum network would offer decisive advantages for certain applications.
Researchers could use it to develop drugs and materials by simulating atomic behaviour on networked quantum computers, for instance, and financial institutions and governments would benefit from next-level cybersecurity.