In an increasingly digitized world, data security is no longer a theoretical issue. Every day, citizens and institutions entrust personal, health, financial, and administrative data to computer networks, which circulate between hospitals, laboratories, data centers, and public and commercial systems. Many of these communications, which were previously protected by systems considered secure, are destined to become vulnerable with the arrival of quantum computers: these will not only be more powerful machines, but also a technology capable of challenging the mathematical problems on which much of current cryptography is based, and thus the mechanisms that currently protect data, transactions, and communications around the world.
Quantum physics provides one of the most effective responses to this threat: Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) generates and distributes cryptographic keys using single photons, the fundamental constituents of light, in an intrinsically secure manner. Despite increased interest, large-scale deployment of QKD is still limited by the bulky, expensive, and power-hungry nature of currently available devices, which fall short of the compactness and efficiency demands of modern telecommunications. This is where integrated photonics comes in, a huge technological advancement that allows for the shrinking of critical optical components on chips, resulting in devices that are much more compact, stable, efficient, and competitive in the market.
This is the driving force behind the PIQCS (Photonic Integrated Quantum Cryptography System) project, which is being led by Marco Avesani, a researcher at the University of Padua’s Department of Information Engineering, and is being funded with €4.3 million through the FISA (Italian Fund for Applied Sciences) call, which is being promoted by the Ministry of University and Research to support applied research projects with high innovation potential and promote technology transfer.
The initiative, which is a component of European technological sovereignty policies and contributes to the European Chips Act’s objectives by promoting the advancement of advanced electronic and photonic chip technologies, including quantum technologies, will also create compact, pluggable modules that are similar to transceivers that are currently in use in telecommunications networks. These modules will be easily integrable into existing infrastructures.
This success is the result of a collaboration between the University of Padua’s integrated photonics research and the industrial knowledge of the spin-off ThinkQuantum, which specializes in the creation of quantum security solutions. Quantum cryptography has a wide range of strategic applications, including healthcare, vital infrastructure, government communications, industrial data centers, and even telecommunications and space. The latter is one of the most promising areas: compact, low-power devices are ideal for usage on satellites, where resources, space, and available power are severely constrained.
News Source: 9Colonne
