India’s first quan­tum secu­red Net­work

STL Tech, a glo­bal pio­neer in opti­cal and digi­tal tech­no­lo­gies, has suc­cessful­ly demons­tra­ted, in col­la­bo­ra­ti­on with the Cent­re for Deve­lo­p­ment of Tele­ma­tics (C‑DOT), India’s lea­ding tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment cen­ter, India’s first Quan­tum Key Dis­tri­bu­ti­on (QKD) trans­mis­si­on over a 100 km long 4‑core mul­ti-core fiber net­work (MCF). This mile­stone marks a signi­fi­cant step towards buil­ding India’s first quan­tum-secu­red and future-rea­dy com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on net­works.

As a lea­ding pro­vi­der of advan­ced con­nec­ti­vi­ty solu­ti­ons for digi­tal infra­struc­tures, inclu­ding opti­cal net­works and con­nec­ti­vi­ty, data cen­ters, and enter­pri­se solu­ti­ons, STL has desi­gned, deve­lo­ped, and deploy­ed India’s first mul­ti-core opti­cal fiber cable (MCF) as an end-to-end solu­ti­on. MCF enables high-per­for­mance data trans­mis­si­on across mul­ti­ple cores within a sin­gle fiber, signi­fi­cant­ly saving space and redu­cing infra­struc­tu­re cos­ts. In the con­text of Quan­tum Key Dis­tri­bu­ti­on (QKD), which typi­cal­ly requi­res dedi­ca­ted dark fibers for the Quan­tum Chan­nel, MCF offers a clear advan­ta­ge: it allows the phy­si­cal sepa­ra­ti­on of Quan­tum and Clas­si­cal Signals across dif­fe­rent cores within a sin­gle fiber. This enables the simul­ta­neous trans­mis­si­on of QKD and high-capa­ci­ty data traf­fic wit­hout com­pro­mi­sing the inte­gri­ty of the Quan­tum Signals.

In this demons­tra­ti­on, Quan­tum Signals were trans­mit­ted over one core, while the remai­ning three cores were used for high-speed user data trans­mis­si­on. STL and C‑DOT suc­cessful­ly demons­tra­ted a sta­ble, error-free QKD con­nec­tion over more than 100 km on a sin­gle opti­cal fiber, simul­ta­neous­ly trans­mit­ting high-capa­ci­ty clas­si­cal data. This demons­tra­tes the sys­te­m’s resi­li­ence under real net­work con­di­ti­ons and pro­ves its abili­ty to sup­port India’s 5G/6G roll­out and mana­ge the incre­asing data demand wit­hout com­pro­mi­sing net­work secu­ri­ty.

Source refe­rence: https://theprint.in/ani-press-releases/stl-c-dot-achieve-indias-first-quantum-secured-network-breakthrough-with-multi-core-fibre/2617046/