Insider Brief
- Qunnect is working with U.S. government agencies and national security partners on quantum networking technologies aimed at securing communications against quantum and AI-enabled threats.
- The company’s new white paper outlines three security applications under development on its Carina hardware: Quantum Position Verification, Quantum Factor Authentication and Quantum Channel Protection.
- Qunnect’s government work includes programs and collaborations involving DARPA, In-Q-Tel, the Air Force Research Laboratory, NIST and the Department of Energy.
PRESS RELEASE — Qunnect, the leading quantum networking company with more quantum networks deployed than any other company, today announced its work with U.S. government agencies and national security partners. That work, together with Qunnect’s commercial deployments and new research, provides a foundation for security applications that will protect critical communications against quantum threats and AI-enabled impersonation, deception, and falsified meta data.
As Congress mandates Department of War to develop quantum networks and the White House calls for all government agencies to secure systems against quantum threats, Qunnect is working with government and industry partners to advance quantum networking solutions to combat these threats. The emerging technologies use quantum entanglement, a physical phenomenon that the company’s new white paper argues offers provably secure approaches to the verification of the devices, users and connections for networks carrying sensitive information.
“Five years ago, we set out to develop quantum networking security applications that could go beyond distributing encryption keys,” said Noel Goddard, CEO of Qunnect. “We saw an opportunity to verify where a signal came from, whether a connection had been disturbed, and whether a device was genuine. Government and commercial partners have been working with us to develop those capabilities and we are excited to share our research on how entanglement and quantum networks can help protect U.S. communications against foreign adversaries and frontier technology threats like AI and quantum.”
Qunnect‘s government and national security work includes:
- DARPA: Qunnect is a contract awardee from DARPA to advance quantum networking technologies through the Quantum Augmented Network, or QuANET, program.
- In-Q-Tel: Qunnect is carrying out its second work program supporting government national security customers through In-Q-Tel, which is also an investor in the company.
- Air Force Research Laboratory: Qunnect has received multiple awards from AFRL’s Information Directorate in Rome, New York since 2020 and is a current Direct to Phase II (D2P2) performer, with instruments installed in their quantum labs.
- NIST: NIST is using Qunnect‘s hardware to advance quantum networking technologies anchoring DC-QNet.
- Department of Energy: Qunnect is a subcontractor to GE Vernova on DOE’s CESER program, the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response, connecting its quantum networking work to the protection of energy infrastructure.
Qunnect‘s new white paper, “Entanglement for Security Beyond QKD,” outlines three security applications under development on its Carina hardware. They use quantum entanglement to add physical verification of location, connections and identity alongside existing encryption:
- Quantum Position Verification (QPV) is designed to provide physical proof of where and when a signal originates, offering an unhackable way to verify location independently of GPS or IP geolocation combatting AI threats to meta data.
- Quantum Factor Authentication (QFA) uses an unspoofable quantum test that relies on quantum physics to authenticate devices, with the aim of resisting the growing sophistication of AI-enhanced impersonation and machine-learning attacks on hardware fingerprints.
- Quantum Channel Protection (QCP) turns the fiber line itself into a sensor, designed to detect a network intruder, tap, splice or rerouting, combatting harvest-now/decrypt later attacks.
Qunnect‘s metropolitan quantum network deployment in New York has supported work with Cisco and NYU, while Deutsche Telekom anchors its quantum network in Berlin with Qunnect hardware. The State of New Mexico commissioned Qunnect to create ABQ-Net as the connective tissue and open access testing infrastructure open to quantum programs and new startups in downtown Albuquerque. These networks operate on existing telecommunications fiber and at room temperature, providing infrastructure for developing new quantum security applications.
The white paper, “Entanglement for Security, Beyond QKD: Physics-based trust in an evolving threat landscape of AI and quantum technologies,” is available here.
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