 British BT and Japan’s Toshiba on Wednesday unveiled the first commercial quantum commercial network test that will prevent encryption from emerging when quantum computing becomes commonplace. Quantum computers are unreliable and expensive today but technologies, developed by companies including Google, IBM and Microsoft, provide the ability to process data millions of times faster than a supercomputer.
Instead of storing information in bits – or zeros and so on – quantum computing uses the space of sub-atomic particles that can exist simultaneously in different regions. Then they can ‘get stuck’ – which means they can influence each other’s behavior in a physical way – which leads to a huge increase in computer power.
BT Chief Technology Officer Howard Watson said quantum technology could be used to break current encryption keys while transmitting data. Quantum key distribution (QKD), however, uses photonics to transmit encryption key to fiber networks, he said. If QKD is hijacked in transfer, its status is changed so the attack will be detected in real time.
He said BT and Toshiba, who have EY as their first customer of the trial, “opened the way for further commercial testing of quantum technology”. BT will provide end-to-end encrypted links through its private Openreach networks, while Toshiba provides. QKD hardware and key management software, companies said.
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