Jay Clemens
Battelle, Toshiba‘s UK team and China have begun installing and testing communications networks by using quantum physics with the goal of helping to secure long-distance transmissions of data, Nature reported Wednesday.
Jane Qiu writes Battelle and Geneva-based ID Quantique collaborated to deploy an approximately 403.8-mile optical fiber to Battelle’s Columbus, Ohio headquarters and offices in Washington.
Don Hayford, a Battelle researcher, told the publication Battelle used “dark fibers†for its trials to send quantum signals over a distance of nearly 62.1 miles.
A team comprised of Toshiba, telecommunications firm BT, ADVA and the UK National Physical Laboratory also has installed a quantum key distribution-based transmission along a fiber link between two BT stations, according to the report.
Grégoire Ribordy, co-founder and chief executive of ID Quantique, told Nature that quantum key distribution works to apply subatomic properties of photons in order to eliminate weak points of encryption systems.
Qiu writes China is also planning to install a 1,200-mile quantum-communications network to link Beijing and Shanghai.
