Quantum science and technology: our vision and our activities in a CRME workshop
Quantum Science and Technology (QST) is revolutionizing the fields of physics and engineering. Its potential for innovative application in many fields is wide and profound. To attract and bring together academic and technological leaders in the QST field Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) and Allied Command Transformation (ACT) have organized the Underwater Quantum Science & Technology (UQST) Workshop.
The UQST Workshop is held from 24-25 May 2022 at La Spezia to galvanize the interdisciplinary expertise of scientists and engineers from academia, research institutions and industry.
Our colleague Paolo Crosta, Head of Innovation LAB, Research programs and R&D&I project, is going to present Italtel research & innovation activities in the Quantum domain on May, 24 in the early afternoon.
Title: Abstract of the speech
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) is currently the best technology for delivering confidential symmetric encryption keys for realizing unconditionally secure end-to-end communication. Nevertheless, QKD suffers of severe physical limitations. Indeed, it requires a quantum channel (optical fiber or free-space satellite) link connecting only a couple of endpoints. Moreover, the signal attenuation over optical fiber limits the length of the terrestrial links.
To overcome these limitations, we introduce the Key Management layer between the QKD physical links and the applications with the goal to create a geographical key distribution network by aggregating the facilities provided by the available QKD links. This approach is compliant with ITU and ETSI specifications. Moreover, it is able to integrate QKD equipment from different vendors and also different key generation technologies besides QKD.
The key distribution network realized by the Key Manager layer is capable to guarantee encryption key SLA and a novel concept of Quality of Security (QoS) that is the ability to trigger the most adequate key generation technology at physical layer to generate the encryption key with the security strength desired at application layer.
Key Management layer fits perfectly into Italtel’s mission of powering seamless communication of people and objects, technologies and networks.
