The US military wants to secure the Internet by making it more quantum

The US military has launched an initiative to determine how quantum units and particle clates that increase traditional communication networks – such as the one that constitutes the Internet – to make them safer.

Quantum networks that share information via Partycles’ quantum statistics are extremely safe. For example, the messages these states cannot be copied eerily thanks to the properties of quantum physics. For this, several quantum communication networks have already been built that are watching around the world.

But a full quantum internet has been hindered because we are now not how we build some of the devices crucial to make it work. Intoread to wait for all the excellent questions to be answered, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has started a program to identify the short -term benefits of making existing communications networks more quantum.

Above all, the Agency’s love is to identify quantum addations that will be practical and useful in the near future, says Allyson O’Brien, manager of Darpas Quantum -Augmented Network (Quanet) program. “We can’t make all the quantum from bats,” she says.

In August, the Quanet team came together for a hackathon that culminated with a concrete demonstration: Light put in a special quantum state was used to transfer images such as the Darpa logo and a simple graphic of a cat. At its best, this early testing of a quantum-gained network obtained bit frequencies high enough to stream high-definition video.

O’Brien says that the quantum states of this demonstration is only one example of a taste of quantity that the Quanet program investigates. Researchers are also working on “hyping -strangement”, where several lighting tendons will be at the same time connected through the bonding of quantum start. Prelimina mathematical models suggesting can help code more secure information in fewer light signals, and cut down on the resources that the quantum network would need.

At the other end of the spectrum, the team examines to make light in their network not full quantity but quantum -like. This involves giving the light with some properties of quantum states without forcing a full fundamental change in its physical character.

The Quanet researchers also develop a quantum network limit surface card, a component that can be connected to communication devices to allow them to transmit and receive quantum signals.

There are many open questions about how useful these interventions can be and at what phases and levels of network design they are best implemented. But O’Brien says Quanet collects quantum physicians, electric engineers and networking specialists to answer these questions as realistic as possible.

“Quantum network will not solve Everhything,” says Joseph Lukens at Purdue University in Indiana. They are only distinguished by some tasks and the most effective way to run them will still include some traditional network devices. “The future is that quantum networks must automatically be integrated with classic networks,” says Lukens. In his view, this programs like Quanet make it valuable-on all the questions on how to quantify the very well-developed and ubiquitous Internet infrastructure we already have.

It would be a great success if the program developed a system where users could sometimes switch to an ultra-secret “quantum state” on their devices. In this way, we could all take advantage of these climbs without having to know anything about the laws of quantum physics, says Lukens.