The €10 million IrelandQCI project aims to building a national quantum infrastructure for Ireland and is part of EuroQCI, an EU-wide quantum communications infrastructure programme.
Researchers will work together to integrate safe quantum devices and systems into Ireland's communications infrastructure.
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Current cryptography is based on large factorization problems which are hard to solve efficiently. By 2023, quantum computers will have sufficient qubits (>1000) to run quantum algorithms such as Shor’s algorithm to solve large factorization problems quickly. The threat is the possibility of breaking encryption systems such as the widely used standard AES256. This puts national infrastructures and security at high risk from cybersecurity attacks which have a catastrophic impact.
The security of current encryption technologies relies on computational hardness assumptions. In the near future advances in computing, combined with ever more sophisticated attacks from different sources, could put at risk the security of telecommand data communication networks. As a result, Europe’s communications networks, and the sensitive data that they transmit could become extremely vulnerable. In order to find solutions to these issues, the European Commission is working with Member States as well as the European Space Agency, towards the deployment of a secure quantum communication infrastructure (EuroQCI) spanning the EU.
Quantum communications provide unique capabilities that promise to be valuable tools in data security against cyber threats both classical and quantum in nature. The EuroQCI program seeks to advance operational quantum enhanced networks throughout the European Union. Due to the complex and novel nature of these systems, however, much progress is still needed in moving from small scale deployment and lab experiments to such a large scale production network.
An open cooperation with 14 EU Member States for sharing lessons learned supports a common ground and space based secure systems architecture and interoperability of equipment. IrelandQCI will be a secure quantum communication infrastructure designed for future cross-border links with the rest of Europe.
IrelandQCI aims to address this challenge through the following objectives:
(1) establishing QKD infrastructure along a major network backbone from Dublin to Cork via Waterford using dark fiber integrated with existing classical fiber systems. In addition, 2 metropolitan networks will connect to public, industry and academic organisations; (2) trialing 16 quantum security technology advanced use cases with key stakeholders to gather requirements for delivering services underpinning more than 40 Irish use cases. These will be implemented in such a way to support the evolution over time through 3 stages of technology maturation, namely, prepare and measure, entanglement distribution, and quantum memory networks once available; (3) creating an innovative quantum technology ecosystem in Ireland. This involves establishing testing and engineering facilities for public, industry and academia to develop and test devices in the quantum network and connect with the European integrated photonics pilot line; and (4) educating key stakeholders, the general public, and building the quantum workforce. Lectures, training, workshops, and visits to quantum technology laboratories will ensure a large number of trained users. |
EuroQCI provides an unprecedented way of securing communications and data integrating innovative and secure quantum products and systems into conventional communication infrastructures. They will do this by enhancing them with an additional layer of security based on quantum physics, in particular quantum key distribution.