What is Quantum Internet?
A quantum internet uses quantum physics principles to allow quantum devices to exchange information. The quantum internet would provide unrivaled capabilities that are difficult to reach currently with web apps.
It is possible to encode data in the quantum realm using qubits produced in quantum devices such as a quantum computer or a quantum processor. In layman’s terms, the quantum internet will involve sending qubits through a network of physically separated quantum devices. All of this would be feasible due to the peculiar properties of quantum states.
That sounds a lot like the standard internet. However, sending qubits via a quantum channel rather than a conventional one entails using the behavior of particles at their smallest size – the so-called “quantum states” – which has long interested and baffled scientists.
And the quantum physics laws that will govern how the information will transferring via the quantum internet is everything but conventional. They are, in fact, odd, counter-intuitive, and, at times, seemingly supernatural.
Quantum Communications
Security is one of the fascinating subjects about which qubit researchers are investigating.
When it comes to conventional communications, most data is safeguarded by assigning a shared key to the sender and receiver and then encrypting the message with that key. The receiver may then decrypt the data using their key at their end.
Traditional communication security today relies on a key generation process that hackers find difficult, but not impossible, to breach. That is why scientists are striving to turn this communication channel into a “quantum” one. The concept is essential to quantum key distribution, a new field of cybersecurity.
Unhackable Quantum Internet
Quantum physics-based internets will provide fundamentally secure communication in the future.
In recent years, scientists have found ways to transfer pairs of photons over fiber-optic cables while entirely protecting the information carried in them. A Chinese team used a modified version of the method to construct a 2,000-kilometer matching circuit connecting Beijing and Shanghai.
Entanglement, a quantum characteristic of atomic particles, is at the heart of the method. Entangled photons cannot interpret without losing their content. On the other hand, Entangled particles are difficult to generate and even more difficult to transmit across long distances. Quantum repeaters will be needed to extend the network and offer an unbroken connection across huge distances.
The goal for quantum researchers is to grow networks first to a national level, then to a global level in the future. The vast majority of specialists believe this will not occur for the next few decades.
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