An illustration of the quantum network used in the study – credit, Mirko Pittaluga et al. via Nature.

For the first time ever, scientists have demonstrated that it’s possible to send quantum communications using existing commercial telecommunication infrastructure.

Sent across 150 miles of commercial fiber optic lines in Germany, including through three telecom data centers in Frankfurt, Kehl, and Kirchfeld, the demonstration set a new record distance for real-world and practical quantum key distribution.

The demonstration, reported in a paper in Nature back in April, suggests that quantum communications can be achieved in real-world conditions, and without spending untold billions to revolutionize telecom infrastructure.

With all the buzz, potential, and disagreement found in the next wave of advanced technologies—comparable perhaps with AI and nuclear fusion reactors—quantum computing is fast approaching its first deployment challenges.

In the United States, IBM has announced the intention to invest $150 billion over the next five years in quantum computing infrastructure, the company said in April. In his previous administration, President Donald Trump signed the National Quantum Initiative Act, which created five quantum data centers at the US National Laboratories at a cost of $1.2 billion.

In a review from 2024, CNET described the approaching quantum revolution as something akin to a Manhattan Project—a private-public distributed collaboration to create faster internet with unparalleled security.

Distribution on a quantum level of encryption keys is one example of the new paradigm that the quantum computing world would bring. Exploiting the coherence of light waves (their potential to interact predictably) can extend the range of quantum communications, but scalability has been limited by the need for specialized equipment, such as cryogenic coolers.

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An approach that enables the distribution of quantum information through fiber optic cables, without the need for cryogenic cooling was explored by Mirko Pittaluga and colleagues in their research paper.

Their system uses a coherence-based, twin-field quantum key distribution, which facilitates the distribution of secure information over long distances at 110 bits per second in a star shaped network.

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It achieved a repeater-like efficiency of quantum communication in an operational network setting with practical system architecture similar to regular racks in regular data centers, which nevertheless doubled the distance for practical real-world quantum key distribution implementations without cryogenic cooling.

This demonstration indicates that advanced quantum communications protocols that exploit the coherence of light can be made to work over existing telecom infrastructure—a massive savings in time and money that would also enable small-scale experimentation in quantum computing to flourish.

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