Britain's BT and Japan's Toshiba launched the first commercial trial of a quantum-secured network today (Wednesday April 27) that will block the vulnerabilities in encryption predicted to emerge once quantum computing becomes mainstream.
The network will be used by professional services group EY to connect two of its sites in London: one at London Bridge and the other at Canary Wharf. BT will provide the end-to-end encrypted links over its Openreach private fibre networks, while Toshiba is supplying the QKD hardware and key management software, the companies said.
Quantum computers are unreliable and costly today, but the technology offers the potential to crunch data millions of times faster than supercomputers.
This London network represents a critical step towards reaching the UK government’s strategy to become a quantum-enabled economy within the next ten years.
“Quantum technology creates new and significant opportunities for business, but...