World’s first quantum metro network in London

Technology News | October 5, 2021

By Nick Flaherty

Materials & processes Interconnect & cables Authentication & Encryption

The world’s first quantum secure network will connect sites in London’s Docklands, the City and the M4 Corridor, and will provide data services secured using Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC).

This follows a demonstration of a point-to-point quantum-secure network link in Bristol and a partnership to run quantum keys over existing fibre-optic cables. Deploying a full quantum-secured metro network environment with multiple endpoints requires new approaches to integration and management.

Operated by BT, the network provide a range of quantum-secured services including dedicated high bandwidth end-to-end encrypted links, delivered over Openreach’s Optical Spectrum Access Filter Connect (OSA FC) solution for private fibre networks. The QKD links will be provided using a quantum network that includes both core and access components, and will be integrated into BT’s existing network management operations.

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Toshiba will provide quantum key distribution hardware and key management software. Th company has set up a quantum encryption hardware manufacturing business in Cambridge, UK.

In June 2021, Toshiba demonstrated long distance Twin Field QKD system over optical fibres exceeding 600 km using dual band stabilisation technique. The combination of multiplexed QKD using existing infrastructure for metro networks, alongside conventional and Twin Field QKD for longer distances, paves the way for a commercially viable quantum-secure network in the UK.

BT quotes estimates that security attacks using quantum computers will be possible within 5 years, and likely to occur within 10 years. Securing encrypted traffic is a pressing problem today, because data which requires long term security could be at risk of ‘store today, crack later’ attacks, in which the key exchange and encrypted traffic are stored now and broken when a sufficiently powerful quantum computer is available. QKD-based security means the key-exchange is secure against any computational or mathematical advance and so is immune to any present or future attacks by quantum computers.

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The initial focus will be to provide trials for enterprise customers who are carrying sensitive traffic (such as database backups) between sites, and to explore potential future offerings such as encrypted links and “quantum keys-as-a-service”.

Toshiba launched commercial products for QKD, manufactured at its Cambridge site, in the latter half of 2020. These offer the highest key rates (1,000’s of keys per second) and longest range of any commercially available fibre QKD system. Toshiba’s multiplexing compatibility allows the data and the quantum keys to be transmitted on the same fibre, eliminating the need for costly dedicated infrastructure for key distribution. Toshiba will also supply network key delivery and management software that enables end-to-end protection of data across the network.

“BT and Toshiba have established a global lead in the development of quantum-secure networks. We’re excited to be taking this collaboration to the next level by building the world’s first commercially operational quantum-secured metro network in London,” said Howard Watson, CTO of BT. “Secure, robust and trusted data transfer is increasingly crucial to our customers across the globe, so we’re proud of the role our Quantum R&D programme is playing in making the world’s networks safer as we enter the dawn of a new age of quantum computing.”

“Our partnership with BT will allow us to offer organisations quantum-secured network services which protect their data from retrospective attacks with a quantum computer. We are delighted to work with BT, with its long heritage of delivering secure, trusted networks. This network paves the way for commercial QKD services in the UK and eventually beyond,” said Taro Shimada, Corporate Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Officer at Toshiba.

BT conducted its first field trial of QKD integrated into a secure optical communications network in 2017 and in 2018-19, ran a second QKD trial on a live network between Cambridge and its Adastral Park R&D campus in Ipswich, at that point the longest link in the UK Quantum Network. Last year BT conducted customer trials with NCC of QKD over 10G Ethernet.

www.bt.com; www.global.toshiba/ww/outline/corporate.html

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