March 23, 2023

By: Krishna Jagannathan and Namrata Sharma

The greatest way to understand the potential of quantum communication technology is to become involved, and now is the best time for delivery units of any organization to start. Quantum communication is considered one of the important cornerstones of quantum. Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), quantum safe networks, and quantum internet are some of the key constituent technologies of quantum communication.

With the advent of quantum communication, researchers, scientists, and industry experts are working on creating extremely secure communication channels and quantum networks leveraging the core principles of quantum physics. In this process of protecting the quantum network, post-quantum cryptography imposes mathematical challenges involving decryption and enhancing the algorithms that a quantum computer requires to decode. Moreover, building a digital infrastructure that can support the fundamental needs of quantum communication, hiring quantum communication specialists and experts, and examining the most important use cases will help organizations evaluate the true potential of the technology.

The need to modify existing communication workflows to be quantum-ready and make relevant data accessible in digital databases are some of the ready steps that enterprises and software delivery units need to pursue to take a competitive advantage. Moreover, LTIMindtree has a positive perspective that its clients will be focusing on building certification and standardization systems for quantum communication devices in response to the needs of the security community.

Quantum communication networks might appear intriguing and esoteric presently; however, it is gaining maturity rapidly. An excellent way to understand the potential of quantum communication technology is to become involved, and now is the best time for delivery units of any organization to start. This will undoubtedly be influenced by the fast-growing ecosystem of government initiatives, increasing commercial research facilities, and startup companies looking for collaborators.

Quantum communication is considered one of the essential cornerstones of the Quantum 2.0 era. This technology can transfer information from one point to another, utilizing the principles of quantum mechanics. With the advent of quantum communication, researchers, scientists, and industry experts are working on creating extremely secure communication channels and quantum networks leveraging the core principles of quantum physics. Research & development is going on in various fields, most notable among them being global quantum communication networks based on satellites, privacy, cryptography, and security. This will make it possible to achieve ultra-secure quantum channels, which are touted to revolutionize and usher in a new era of secure multipartite information transfer and sharing.

All encryption and decryption involve the use of public and private keys. These keys need to be distributed securely over public channels bringing us to possibly one of the fundamental use cases in quantum communication, a concept known as QKD. It has progressed from lab-based proof-of-concept research to industrialized testbed realizations for real-world deployments. Apart from secure communication, QKD is also proving to be a promising area for data security as its protocols propose an extremely high-security level for data-in-transit, based on the benefits of several quantum notions such as superposition, no-cloning theorem, the notion of measurement, and entanglement.

Another important constituent of quantum communication is quantum safe networks which involve securing the network from being compromised against cyber-attacks. In protecting the quantum network, Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) imposes mathematical challenges involving decryption and enhancing the algorithms that a quantum computer requires to decode. The complexity of such decryption algorithms also imposes similar challenges to other quantum computers, eventually leading to quantum-safe networks, with secure quantum VPNs being the first application of quantum-safe networks. Wide adoption of such quantum-safe networks paves the way to the third most crucial constituent, i.e., Quantum Internet.

Technology developers, academics, and researchers are working on creating devices like repeaters, quantum routers, gateways, hubs, and others which will make mass adoption of quantum communication networks affordable, practical, and usable.
Quantum communication adoption is already increasing exponentially. As per McKinsey, the technology will achieve widespread adoption within the next few years. With the increase in demand for safeguarding sensitive information, quantum communication will offer significant growth opportunities across multiple verticals.

Fig 2: Quantum communication positioning RADAR

The snapshot from LTIMindtree Crystal provided above indicates quantum communication under Horizon 2, implying that the technology will likely reach mainstream within 2 to 5 years. This assessment is based on numerous factors, such as commercial viability, maturity, cost, security, and availability.

How Can an Organization Embrace Quantum Communication?

Quantum communication has enormous implications for the future of enterprises and software delivery. We believe that adopting quantum communication technology at a massive scale would take another 5 to 10 years. This implies that investors will most likely be interested in businesses that are making progress right now.

Moreover, various data-driven end-use sectors such as Banking and Financial Services, defense, government, and healthcare would be dependent on quantum communication security solutions that offer unprecedented opportunities for reliable and secured infrastructure.
Establishing an engagement with the academic institutions by funding their research and offering mentorship will strengthen the technical capabilities and develop innovative products and processes for the organizations.

Building a digital infrastructure that can support the fundamental needs of quantum communication, hiring quantum communication specialists and experts as well as examining the most important use cases will help organizations evaluate the true potential of quantum communication for the organizations.

Additionally, to analyze the threats to current private-key encryption techniques that are being created by major advances in quantum computers and quantum algorithms, organizations need to take urgent actions to create a safe communication channel.

Instead of waiting until a full quantum network is viable or until the requirements of quantum communication hardware become more practical, QKD is a reasonably inexpensive approach to benefit from a quantum-level security protection standpoint right away. Additionally, safe quantum internet and PQC development and hardware implementation are in progress, and organizations can leverage integrating these constituents for safe quantum communication across long distances.

Furthermore, to extend their market reach, organizations should ideally focus on adopting inorganic development strategies such as strategic alliances as well as merger and acquisition operations with technology partners to leverage upon the advantages of quantum communication technology in the short term.

The following actions can prove crucial for organizations preparing quantum communication technology to reach the mainstream.

• Addressing the imminent quantum risks: To protect sensitive data before quantum communication becomes widely used, experts advise taking corrective measures now. Organizations need to use enough encryption to safeguard their data, whether in the cloud, in transit, or on laptops and other devices.
• Building a digital infrastructure capable of supporting the fundamental demands of quantum communication: The need to modify existing communication workflows to be quantum-ready and make relevant data accessible in digital databases are some of the ready steps that enterprises and software delivery units need to pursue for taking a competitive advantage.
• Quantum advances on parallel tracks: Organizations must advance concurrently with the development of quantum hardware so that software applications are available when quantum communication networks launch.

Applicability of Quantum Communication

Although financial considerations and several other issues have hampered the adoption of quantum communication technology, it is interesting to see how some enterprises recognize the benefits of quantum communication. LTIMindtree, as an I.T. service provider, is aware that it is a long-term aspiration, and the company desires to support different verticals by collaborating with them to explore solutions to pressing issues. To highlight how quantum communication has been perceived within different verticals, LTIMindtree perceives the following use cases as potential ones where quantum communication has a lot of scope.

• Adoption of quantum-safe protection solutions for highly sensitive data To adopt quantum-safe protection for highly sensitive data, financial institutions have begun building data and crypto inventories. Public key cryptography is also used by banks, for instance, in digital signatures used for software authentication and identification.
• Key distribution and cryptography for hybrid networks, including cloud & quantum, where some computations are redirected Enables network-based use of centralized, shared resources (both hardware and software) over a network.
• Implementation of multi-factor authentication for digital financial services Quantum safe communication through quantum keys at the customer’s device OTPs for transactions, utility payments, third-party payments, and cardless withdrawals using random number generators.
• OTP is important for payments to authenticate transactions With the increasing number of transactions, the OTP has become less random hence susceptible to guessing attacks. Coupled with human errors, this will be a problem for security in payments
• Virtual Private Networks (VPN security) There are two major use cases, including remote VPN and site-to-site use cases. People can connect to the corporate network from their mobile devices using remote VPNs. Instead of having the tunnel’s one end at a particular user device, site-to-site VPNs build secure tunnels across sites or computer networks. With quantum VPNs, the routers normally handle encryption and decryption at each location, ensuring the security of all incoming and outgoing traffic. The locations could be data centers, corporate headquarters, branch offices, private, public, or hybrid clouds.

All these use cases aim to establish business trust, which is essential as quantum communication technology develops. Moreover, most quantum communication devices have the processing power or pricing limitations. Some of the solutions are not technically or financially possible because of these limitations, especially when they include time-consuming, computationally expensive cryptographic processes such as temporary key creation or encryption. However, organizations can advance concurrently with the development of quantum hardware so that software applications are ready when quantum communication networks launch.

Conclusion

Quantum communication’s special powers have the potential to revolutionize several sectors, and both large I.T. businesses and startups are showing interest in quantum communication. . We believe that quantum communication is not only here to stay but will also have a substantial influence on several communication-related issues, leading to the introduction of fresh security protocols.

In line with developing security protocols, after six years of intense research, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has worked on bridging the gap between fundamental quantum mechanics and its practical applications in the I.T. business. On the NIST Gaithersburg campus, several testbeds called the NIST Gaithersburg Quantum Network (NG-QNet) are being developed to implement and describe various features of quantum networks. All these projects and protocols will certainly help organizations adopt these protocols to ease the transition from current public key algorithms to replacement algorithms that are immune to attacks using quantum computers.

The next ten years will bring numerous challenges for enterprises and delivery partners, but quantum solutions have the potential to be very remunerative. Due to the possibility of several intermediate applications for existing technologies, they may even provide value before device optimization takes place. The advent of a new era of global Quantum Communication is imminent as this technology moves rapidly from the laboratory to the field. The strategy of “wait and watch” is no longer an option.

Delve into the world of Quantum Communication by visiting Solving-with-Quantum