Forum für die Quan­ten­kom­mu­ni­ka­ti­on in Deutsch­land

Qcom Com­mu­ni­ty hands over Joint Impul­se Paper to Sta­te Secre­ta­ry Phil­ip­pi:

On 17 Octo­ber 2024, the ‘Forum für Quan­ten­kom­mu­ni­ka­ti­on in Deutsch­land’ took place at the Fraun­ho­fer Hein­rich Hertz Insti­tu­te (HHI) in Ber­lin. Num­e­rous stake­hol­ders from rese­arch, indus­try and poli­tics were pre­sent at the event, inclu­ding the Bun­des­amt für Sicher­heit in der Infor­ma­ti­ons­tech­nik (BSI), the Euro­päi­sche Komi­tee für Nor­mung (Comi­té Euro­pé­en de Nor­ma­li­sa­ti­on, CEN), the Euro­päi­sche Komi­tee für elek­tro­tech­ni­sche Nor­mung (Comi­té Euro­pé­en de Nor­ma­li­sa­ti­on Élec­tro­tech­ni­que, CENELEC), and the Euro­pean Quan­tum Indus­try Con­sor­ti­um (QuIC).

The aim of the forum was to high­light the importance of Quan­tum Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on for a quan­tum-safe future in Ger­ma­ny and to pre­sent the cur­rent sta­te of rese­arch in this field. The guest of honour was the Sta­te Secre­ta­ry of the Bun­des­mi­nis­te­ri­um für Bil­dung und For­schung (BMBF), Dr. Roland Phil­ip­pi. After being wel­co­med by Prof. Dr. Mar­tin Schell, he descri­bed Quan­tum Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on as an essen­ti­al com­po­nent of sus­tainable IT secu­ri­ty and tech­no­lo­gi­cal sove­reig­n­ty: ‘Gemein­sam mit Wis­sen­schaft und Wirt­schaft gestal­ten wir so ein star­kes Inno­va­ti­ons­sys­tem.’ 

Fol­lo­wing Dr Philippi’s ope­ning speech, QuN­ET, led by Dr Nino Walen­ta, tog­e­ther with part­ners from the Fraun­ho­fer-Insti­tut für Ange­wand­te Optik und Fein­me­cha­nik (IOF), the Deut­sche Zen­trum für Luft- und Raum­fahrt e.V. (DLR), the Max-Planck-Insti­tut für die Phy­sik des Lichts und the Fried­rich-Alex­an­der-Uni­ver­si­tät (FAU) Erlan­gen-Nürn­berg, suc­cessful­ly pre­sen­ted a quan­tum-secu­red data trans­mis­si­on in Berlin’s inner-city net­work. In the future, this type of trans­mis­si­on could be used for digi­tal ser­vices pro­vi­ded by public aut­ho­ri­ties or for the trans­mis­si­on of per­so­nal data. 

Ano­ther con­tri­bu­ti­on by the con­sor­ti­um Quan­tum Repeater.Link (QR.X), led by Prof. Dr. Chris­toph Becher, demons­tra­ted a basic tech­no­lo­gi­cal buil­ding block of future Quan­tum Net­works: tele­por­ta­ti­on. The video not only cle­ar­ly explai­ned the theo­re­ti­cal back­ground of ent­an­gle­ment and tele­por­ta­ti­on, but also pre­sen­ted an expe­ri­ment in which Quan­tum Tele­por­ta­ti­on bet­ween a trap­ped ion and a tele­com pho­ton was suc­cessful­ly car­ri­ed out over a 14-kilo­met­re-long fib­re link — the so-cal­led Saar­brü­cken Quan­tum Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on Fiber Test­bed

A high­light of the event was the for­mal han­do­ver of a joint impul­se paper entit­led ‘Quan­ten­kom­mu­ni­ka­ti­on für siche­re digi­ta­le Infra­struk­tu­ren’, which was pre­sen­ted to the Sta­te Secre­ta­ry by the BMBF-fun­ded con­sor­tia QR.X, QuN­ET and SQuaD as well as the Deut­sche Indus­trie­ver­bund für Quan­ten­si­cher­heit (DIVQ­Sec). As the result of an inten­si­ve dis­cus­sion pro­cess within the Qcom com­mu­ni­ty in the run-up to the forum, the paper under­lines the cru­cial importance of Quan­tum Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on not only for secu­re digi­tal infra­struc­tures, but also for the pro­tec­tion of sen­si­ti­ve data in an incre­asing­ly digi­ta­li­zed world. It pro­vi­des a com­pre­hen­si­ve over­view of the cur­rent sta­tus in Ger­ma­ny and out­lines the rese­arch requi­red to fur­ther advan­ce the tech­no­lo­gy as well as crea­te the basis for a secu­re digi­tal future. As sta­ted right at the begin­ning of the impul­se paper: ‘Siche­re und leis­tungs­fä­hi­ge digi­ta­le Infra­struk­tu­ren sind die Grund­pfei­ler einer sou­ve­rä­nen und selbst­be­stimm­ten Infor­ma­ti­ons­ge­sell­schaft.’

The forum was also accom­pa­nied by panel dis­cus­sions, pre­sen­ta­ti­ons and a varie­ty of info points on the key topics and high­lights of Quan­tum Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on. The­se acti­vi­ties were cha­rac­te­ri­zed by the com­mon goal of the par­ti­ci­pan­ts to fur­ther advan­ce Quan­tum Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on in Ger­ma­ny in order to make com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on secu­re even in the era of Quan­tum Com­pu­ters. 
Fur­ther infor­ma­ti­on on the event and the cur­rent sta­te of Quan­tum Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on in Ger­ma­ny can also be found in an artic­le published by the Tages­spie­gel on 29 Octo­ber 2024.