The internet has had a revolutionary impact on our world. The vision of a quantum internet is to provide fundamentally new internet technology by enabling quantum communication between any two points on Earth. Such a quantum internet can —in synergy with the “classical” internet that we have today—connect quantum information processors in order to achieve unparalleled capabilities that are provably impossible by using only classical information.
At present, such technology is under development in physics labs around the globe, but no large-scale quantum network systems exist. In this talk, we will discuss some of the efforts to move from an ad-hoc physics experiment to a scalable quantum network system. We start by providing a gentle introduction to quantum networks for computer scientists, and briefly review the state of the art. We continue to present a network stack for quantum networks, and a give an overview of a link layer protocol for producing quantum entanglement as an example.
We close by providing a series of pointers to learn more, as well as tools to download that allow play with simulated quantum networks without leaving your home.
Stephanie Wehner is Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Professor, and Roadmap Leader in Quantum Internet and Networked Computing at QuTech, Delft University of Technology. Her goal is to understand the world of small particles – the laws of quantum mechanics – in order to construct better networks and computers. She has written numerous scientific articles in both physics and computer science, and is one the founders of QCRYPT, which has become the largest conference in quantum cryptography. At present, she serves as the coordinator of the European Quantum Internet Alliance. From 2010 to 2014, her research group was located at the Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore. Previously, she was a postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology. In a former life, she worked as a professional hacker in industry.
