In today’s episode, we’re joined by Michael Kubadoo, co-founder of Alero Quantum Technologies, for an eye-opening discussion about the future of quantum networking and its game-changing impact on security and computing.

We explore what sets quantum networks apart from classical ones, from the physics of entanglement and superposition to the urgent need for security-first principles as this new infrastructure emerges. Michael explains the practical realities and misconceptions around quantum networks, how simulation and hybrid systems are bridging today’s technology with tomorrow’s networks, and why quantum advantages could revolutionize how we think about communication, sensing, and even money.

Whether you’re a researcher, entrepreneur, or simply quantum-curious, this conversation offers a rare look at the frontlines of quantum networking—what it will take to build it, the threats and opportunities ahead, and the collaborative effort required to shape the next generation of secure, interconnected technologies.

Links

• Michael's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-cubeddu/
• Video version of this interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdBrtZn9rWU

Time Stamps

00:00 How quantum networking is evolving

06:09 Quantum networking security basics

07:50 Early doubts about malware immunity

12:11 Preparing for cyber and quantum threats

16:16 Future threats to sensitive data

19:19 Quantum tech and existing systems

20:59 Designing and simulating quantum networks

25:04 Designing hybrid quantum data centers

27:38 Near-term quantum security applications

30:43 Early ideas of quantum money

35:54 Quantum networking hardware innovations

39:50 Advances in quantum sensor networking

42:59 Advances in quantum sensor networks

47:46 Building a quantum networking workforce

50:51 Networking in quantum computing

55:07 Learning about quantum networking

56:21 Cosmic jazz and quantum beats

Is one of the quantum advantages that quantum networks have. And

security is an interesting point because in the Internet, in the evolution

of that network and the networks of networks,

security wasn't really front of mind and it was kind of tacked on

at the end. And there are plenty of vulnerabilities and security

on the Internet today. And so we do have an opportunity here to really build

these security first principles into

the quantum Internet as it evolves. Welcome to Impact

Quantum.

Hello and welcome back to Impact Quantum, the podcast where we

explore the emerging industry that is quantum computing. We don't

need to be a physicist. You just need to be curious about the technology.

And. And with me is the most quantum curious person I

know, Candice Giuli. How's it going, Candice? It's going great. Thank

you, Frank. It's going great. Today we are going to be speaking

with Michael Kubadoo, who is the co

founder at Alero Quantum Technologies.

How are you, Michael? I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having

me here today. I'm really excited to have this conversation. I'm

a big fan of the podcast and really honored to be here as a guest.

Thank you. Thank you very much. It's always good to

one find out we have fans and then two to meet one.

So Alero, I'm looking at kind of their just basic

talk. This looks really interesting. It's a quantum

networking company. So for those may not be in the know, what

exactly is a quantum networking company? So

quantum networks are new kinds of networks where

traditional networks send zeros and ones around.

And quantum networks, while they can send zeros and ones around, they can

actually send qubits or quantum states over these

channels. And those channels could be fiber, they could be over free space.

So it's really a way to communicate quantum data across

distance. And so to build a company around quantum

networking. There are many pieces of technology

that comprise a quantum network from different kinds of hardware, different

components, but then all of the software stack, the whole networking stack that really

drives what we can do with these kinds of networks. And that's what we focus

on at Alero. Interesting.

So what role? I'm thinking about networks and

so it just makes me think naturally of entanglement.

So what role does entanglement and quantum

repeaters play in making these long

distance quantum networks possible? That's a really

great question. And similar to the

evolution of the Internet, and there were different generations on

the way to the Internet that we, we know and love today.

You know, it really started as, you know, a network

for Science exchange and to share data across

distance between labs. No one really envisioned

the applications that we know and love today. And

we see the same kinds of trends in, in quantum networking.

And the key resource in the Internet is again, these zeros

and ones and how fast you can send them, where

those zeros and ones can. Can reach

over a certain distance. And those are the services that, that really

underpin all the great applications. And the same kind of

analog applies to quantum networking, where, as you said,

entanglement is one such resource, that different applications

can use entanglement in different ways. Now,

there's a lot more complexity with entanglement than zeros and ones. Right.

There are different kinds of entangled states. This notion of

fidelity, or the quality of entanglement, where there really isn't that

quality of a 0 or a 1 in classical networks. So it

is a different paradigm. But some analogies do apply. You can

view entanglement really as a resource that the network is providing, and

then you can build services and applications on top of that entanglement.

But there are different generations of quantum networks, too. Quantum

networks have been demonstrated now for decades. And the

first generations were really about just sending single qubits

or single quantum states and superposition across this network.

And what you mentioned as entanglement is really what we see as the next generation

of quantum networking, the kind of quantum 2.0 of

networks where now we can have not just single photons or single

qubits, but now entangled pairs or larger clusters

of qubits that are entangled with each other and have this special correlation

across distance. And that opens the door for all sorts of applications in

security and computing and sensing in others.

Interesting. So does that mean that

this would be impervious, or I'll

use that term with a little asterisk, because we don't know yet, really, does this

mean that snooping would automatically be detected because you're

sending the superposition so it's inherently secure?

Absolutely. That's really one of the big promises.

One of the quantum advantages that quantum networks have.

And security is an interesting point, because in the Internet,

in the evolution of that network and the networks

of networks, security wasn't really front of mind, and it was kind of tacked on

at the end. And there are plenty of vulnerabilities and security

on the Internet today. And so we do have an opportunity here to really build

these security first principles into

the quantum Internet as it evolves. But that's

absolutely right. These quantum

physics principles, like entanglement, superposition, the no

Cloning theorem, these core principles of quantum

physics really drive those security properties. So as you

said, spoofing or eavesdrop detection, where you can actually

detect when there are some adversaries or some funkiness going on on the network

that will produce patterns and measurement results from these nodes that

can really detect when those things are going on. It's interesting

where as you introduced this podcast focusing on

quantum computing, these sensitivities of

quantum states are actually a bug in quantum computing because they're very

hard to control and you want a computer to be reliable and

robust and isolated from the environment.

This kind of noise is a bug for computing, but it's actually a

feature for networking. You know, this fragility of quantum states, the

sensitivity to its environment is actually what unlocks these security

principles and this new kind of quantum advantage. So eavesdrop detection,

spoof detection, these things are really baked into the physics itself.

So theoretically it's impervious. But who knows what, who knows what

conversation we'll be having in 10 to 15 years about that?

Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. You know, security, they're all,

you know that theoretical security is one piece of the puzzle, right?

And at the end of the day, to build a quantum network, you know, it

sits in a box somewhere, there's some collection of hardware, there's the

software that runs it. So there are many other attack vectors to think about. But

at its core, you know, that's where we really derive a lot of the

security value is from that physics itself and using that

physics for security. Whereas, you know, security today in the

Internet, it's really based on math and assumptions about computational

complexity and all sorts of. Whereas this is really a physics

based approach. So for those listening and for Candace

and for Michael as well, if I sound a little grumpy about that, it's not

the concussion or the funky glasses. It's because I

remember sitting in a training class for Windows

NT, maybe 92, 93,

and the instructor, who might have been a

Microsoft employee, I don't remember, had basically boldly

proclaimed that because it was based on the new NT kernel and various security

features of that, that computer viruses would be impossible

to make in the future. So again,

I didn't really buy it at the time, sound a little far fetched, but

I kind of sort of believed it. I was kind of on the, I was

a bit in a state of superposition about it, but obviously as

time moved on, clearly, you know, the anti kernel and

you know, Windows XP and et cetera, et cetera have not been immune

to malware. So that's why it's

not that I don't trust it or I don't believe in the physics. It's just

like you said, at some point this has to sit in the physical thing and

what sort of software vulnerabilities will be covered. But it does give bad

actors a much

bigger hill to climb in order to mess with your network.

That's right. And I think this is where a healthy dialogue around

the security of these quantum networks. You

know, what applications it's being used for, for what kind of data,

what parts of the network are we talking about, what critical infrastructure

is it, you know, electric grid, is it securing financial

transactions, government communications? There are all sorts of security

requirements and compliance and different regulations around

what security means operationally to these stakeholders. So

that's a really healthy conversation and one that's worth having on the international

stage as we start to think about standards and

how to roll this out in the right way to make sure these networks can

talk to each other securely, even if they're using different approaches

to build quantum networks. So that's a really healthy conversation,

and that's what I think we can expect in the coming years as this technology

really matures. But, you know, we all really agree on this kind of,

you know, the driver, the core principles of using physics

and the laws of physics for security first. And,

you know, it's a lot harder to break the laws of physics than it may

be to find a side channel attack. Right. So, you know, but this

is the discussion we need to be having. It's like, what, what do these

attack vectors look like? You know, what do quantum adversaries look

like? What do we project our adversaries will be using as new tools?

Is it AI? Is it quantum? Is it some mixture of both to try

and attack these networks? Is it to read communications off the

wire, or is it easier to blackmail someone? Right. You know, but

these are. These are practical considerations that we have to think about,

you know, in the coming years as we start to really roll this out in

production. It's really exciting. Everything

that it's touching upon, it's quantum

networking. What advice would you give to

a researcher or an entrepreneur who's

passionate about entering the space?

That's a great question. One thing that's

important to know is that quantum computing

is coming. And even experts within the field

couldn't say that confidently even a few years ago.

It's no longer a matter of if, but a matter of when.

And I think all the great advances in error correction

have really made the case that quantum computing is really on a trajectory

to hit the stage in production sooner

than than we thought, which is great. But you know,

with any sort of emerging technology with this kind of power and potential,

you know, we understand that this, in the wrong hands or in adversarial

hands, can be used to, to attack, you know,

the digital security that we rely on today. So we need

to prepare for that. Now the question becomes how do we

prepare our networks to become quantum safe, to become

quantum resistant, to become quantum secure. And you hear these

words thrown around a lot, but that's extremely important for

governments, for critical infrastructure, our energy grids, our

banks, to really think about migrating to

a quantum safe, a quantum aware posture for their cybersecurity.

The attacks are ever changing and we're seeing this play out on many

different stages in military contexts and political

conflicts, in hacks, right? There are all

sorts of cyber attacks. And now with AI playing a

big role as well. It's not just quantum. Just have

more awareness that technology is moving very rapidly

at an increasing pace. And we need to prepare our networks and our

critical infrastructure, not take it for granted and be proactive about it

and don't be reactive. So that's the advice, I'd say, just

awareness around these attacks, preparing for that,

and doing research into what's out there

to protect these networks. Where does having this physics

layer make sense for your data, for your kind of network?

There are a lot of organizations figuring out right now, how much

of my stuff do I want in the cloud versus on prem, how

much do I trust these big hyperscalers and cloud

vendors? And so as they're going through this migration,

figuring out, okay, how much AI am I going to adopt, how much cloud am

I going to adopt? Where does my network security lie in

that? It's all a related problem. It's very hard to

decouple. So this is not a problem that's

decades out that it's fun to think about and a good

exercise. Now this is something that's very important and a complex

topic to start breaking down. So even just doing the inventory of

what's in place right now, what am I using for security? Who

wrote that code? Was it a decade ago and is

that engineer still on staff? Is it written in an old

programming language that I don't have an engineering team to support?

So those questions, just doing the surveying, the inventory can take a long

time and it's very complex. So getting started on that process

today is really critical. And that's the practical advice I would give.

Then it sounds like you're describing sbom or secure bill of materials

is going to be a part of a. And that makes sense, right? Like it

makes. So for those who don't know, we'll have to explain that because my wife

works in IT security. So I kind of, I kind of know some of the

goings on in terms. But one of the,

I think that, I think you're right. I think we have to have a, as

a society, you know, that is increasingly reliant on this

technology and to have very frank conversations, no

pun intended, about how

we secure infrastructure. Right. I mean, look at the chaos that

having us east one of us going down caused.

All the way from, you know, oh, you know, websites

go down all the way to, you know, some people had IoT devices that were

basically locked including. And I'll pick on them, I'll pick on them for many

years to come. Is the smart

bed. Apparently there was a smart bed that was collecting, you

know, measures how well you sleep and all that. But it would not do anything

unless it could talk to us east one. And you know, we're

recording this a day after a massive Verizon outage. Right.

Right. So it,

you know, we need to understand what our know,

vulnerability of it because, you know, for all we know, these are just

natural happenings. Right. Not a coordinated cyber attack,

for all we know. Right. We'll never, you know, what

will we ever really know the full truth? Maybe. But,

but Candace shaking her head no, like I probably not. But you

know, but I mean, what if this was, you know,

what if this was a coordinated attack?

Like how, you know, how vulnerable are we really?

Yeah. And another, you know, point to that, to that end is around,

you know, attacks that are happening now that, that we don't

even know about, that we can't see directly that aren't,

you know, taking user facing applications down and you know, making

a big fuss in the public eye.

You know, there are adversaries out there that are just harvesting data. They're,

you know, even if they can't crack it yet, they're harvesting it. And

some years down the road when they have access to these, you know, high scale

compute systems and quantum computers, they'll be able to,

you know, look back in time and crack that communication.

So this is especially important for, you know, the kinds of data that you want

to keep secret for a very long time, whether that's, you

know, sensitive financial records, if it's medical records, if it's Government

communications nation secrets. Right. These, there are certain classes of

data that you want to remain secure for

decades. Right. And so, but that's a

threat that's happening now, the harvesting,

you know, it opens you up to this kind of attack at some point in

the future. So a lot of what we do and we engage with these security

stakeholders is to just make them aware that this is happening

and you know, to drive the urgency to be proactive

today and making them understand that, you

know, these kinds of attacks that aren't visible are still

happening. And we do have a lot of dependencies on,

you know, certain cloud infrastructure, data centers, physical

infrastructure and these undersea cables. Right. You know, we

need to think hard and take a close look at what are our

dependencies, how do we mitigate them and what are the attacks that,

that take priority. Right. That's a good way to put it.

And I know Candice is itching to ask you questions and

I don't want to monopolize your time, but after Candace's, I

want to go through your because one, your website's awesome and two, I have some

questions about some of the use cases because those are things I never considered and

those look awesome. Sorry, Candice, go ahead. No, no, it's totally

fine. So let me ask you, so what

role do you see simulation in hybrid classic

classical quantum systems playing in building and testing

quantum networks before large

scale deployment? Yeah, it's a great

question and that's really why we've

spent many years building a very robust simulation

platform and a product,

as you said rightly so. This is a complex technology,

it's one that's evolving. As Frank mentioned, there are other use cases

beyond security that I'd love to get into. But

you know, we have, we have to coexist with what's

here today. Right. We can't lay down a whole new infrastructure

just for quantum. There's fiber in the ground. It's very

expensive to lay new fiber. There's technology we can leverage

today. Let's use it. There are lessons we can take from the Internet.

There's you know, classical security and math based security

that, that we use every day and

every time you see that lock icon and your URL, that's

encryption and we need to coexist with those mechanisms.

It's well baked and very prevalent throughout. That's really the

role simulation can play is to help figure out, okay,

as I start implementing a quantum friendly

or quantum enabled infrastructure, how does it coexist with what

I have today? What fiber am I Using in the ground.

What does it look like to introduce quantum devices onto my network?

How can I combine these new quantum security

applications with my existing security applications?

You mentioned smart beds. Am I going to get qubits to your smart

bed? Probably not. There's no quantum WI

fi. And so what that means is, you know,

when we talk about rolling out quantum networking and quantum

security, quantum encryption, it needs to be

deployed in the right places for the right use cases.

And over time that may grow. But we know

that not everything is going to be quantum. The quantum Internet is not going to

replace the classical Internet by any means. It is going to

augment it. It's going to add new capabilities for certain applications,

certain parts of the network. But classical networks will

absolutely play a role in

our future. And so we need to coexist with what's there.

Simulation is really critical to address those

questions, to figure out how to build these hybrid

networks where parts of your network are just classical, parts of them have

quantum communication on it. How can those nodes talk

to each other end to end in a secure way? So

it's the networking, the protocols, the security, but also the physics. Right.

We need to model how these networks work, what kind of

hardware you, you actually need to build a quantum network

for a certain scale, what kinds of rates and fidelities you need.

There are all sorts of trade offs when designing a quantum network.

And so simulation is really critical not just in planning and

designing a quantum network, but figuring out how to scale it, how to

introduce these new applications, simulating new kinds of protocols

beyond just symmetric keys and encryption keys.

So there's all sorts of use cases for quantum simulation

that is much cheaper than actually acquiring some of this quantum

specialized hardware, which could be quite pricey in some cases.

Okay, interesting. Go ahead, Frank. All right,

I'm chomping at the bit because one, one, your website's really well

designed. And two,

networking quantum computers, solving the scaling

problem. That is the one that blew my mind. If you're watching the video, you

can see when I really click through that, that is a, that is

an amazing concept where, you know, it reads like. And I don't know

how, you know, you know, is this happening

now where I could have, say, if I have a quantum computer, I can

network with that with another one and I can

have basically clusters of quantum computing, which is not something I heard

a lot of people talk about yet, you know, they always show like, here's our

chandelier, right, you know, and all that. But like the whole idea of

having like, basically an entire, you know, cluster of these

chandeliers. How real is that?

Yeah, that's a great question, and I'm glad we have an opportunity

to talk about how quantum networks really

enable quantum computing. So quantum

networks are not just good for security, and they're not good just for

long distance communication. What is a data

center? A data center is a network of clustered compute

resources, even GPU clusters. You know, there's the famous saying, the

network is the computer, right? The same principle applies here for

quantum computing. You know, the conversation, as you pointed out, used to be, my

qubit is better than yours. My, my material, my platform

has better fidelity, or it's faster, or it's this or that, or it

can run longer circuits. There are all sorts of metrics that the quantum

computing community would talk about. Now

we're entering a phase where, you know, we used to have small,

noisy, intermediate scale quantum computers, which could

have maybe a dozen qubits, and they're very unreliable and

noisy. But really, over the past years, since we

started Alero, we've seen the amazing advances

in quantum computing where now we're at the orders of hundreds or

thousands of qubits. We now have error correction, we have, you

know, some level of protecting against noise. And so the

conversation is starting to shift from here's why my qubit is better

than yours to here's why my path to scalability

is better than yours. And I think that's the critical

transition in the dialogue that we're seeing. It's all

about scalability. Now that I've achieved the error correction threshold, I

can build a logical qubit. How do I

scale to millions and millions of qubits? And the same

thing with classical computers and GPUs and CPUs, there's no

monolithic single chip that runs everything,

right? A data center is a network of small computers.

And the same thing applies to quantum computing. So

now that opens all sorts of fun questions around what

does that quantum data center look like? What does the quantum network look like to

actually communicate qubits across different quantum

computers? And that's some of the networking

problems that we solve with rstack as well. How to

manage quantum traffic between computers, how to manage

all the scheduling and the different timescales that these quantum

computers operate at? How to provide this reliable

entanglement as a service, as a resource to these different compute

clusters? There are all sorts of interesting questions from, you

know, not only a physics aspect, but the whole networking stack, the compute

stack, to support it and just to throw another

curveball in there we have GPUs to play with as well.

Nvidia has invested a lot of, you know, money and resources

into playing a big role in really pioneering

how quantum computers will interact with their GPUs.

Right. So you're going to have this hybrid quantum data center. You have

quantum computers, you have GPUs. You might have different kinds of quantum

computers playing a role. You have CPUs, you have networks that are quantum

networks that are classical. They all need to work together, they

all need to be orchestrated and play this

complex dance with each other so we can solve really

large scale and impactful problems.

Wow. I'm sorry, Candice. I'll

say. So from your perspective, what

are the most realistic near term use cases

for quantum networking beyond the

pure research? Yeah, great question.

There are all sorts of applications for a

quantum network. And you know, one

common misconception that we face is when folks hear the

word quantum, they either think about a Marvel

movie or something mythical and very far off into

the future. There's that camp, there's the other camp that's

quantum aware and they hear the word quantum and they think about quantum computing.

And that's really dominated the, the airwaves and, and the

discourse for quantum technology, and rightly so. It has, you know,

many huge potentials in,

in solving problems exponentially faster than, than other kinds of

computers. That's great. But one thing we face is

that to build a useful quantum network, you don't need a quantum

computer. There are other kinds of quantum devices, special quantum

lasers and detectors and other sorts of optics and

photonics that you don't need a full scale quantum computer

to do these security applications. For example, to generate secure

keys between nodes, to have a secure link. You know,

you don't need a quantum computer to do that. So those are the use cases

that are near term those ones where we don't rely

on error correction and fault tolerant quantum

computers. We just have security

and key generation and these

other sorts of applications. In the near term, I think in the medium

term, we'll see other kinds of security applications, not just for keys,

but to actually use the quantum channel to

encode our sensitive data. So using what's called

quantum secure direct communication, there's teleportation,

there's new kinds of authentication methods. So we

can actually use these quantum networks to verify location and

to verify the position of nodes on

a network. This is something you can't do classically.

So this is a way that quantum position verification has this non

spoofing property. To it, which is really nice. So we expect that

in the medium term as well. And then in the long term we can think

about distributed quantum computing where you're connecting

quantum computers over a long distance. There's

great applications not just in computing, but the security of

that computing as well. So who's going to own these quantum

computers? Is it the cloud titans? Right. If

so, how do I actually securely send my, my algorithm,

my computation to the cloud, to the US Quantum east one

and get those results back

securely? And doing so without showing

Amazon or showing the cloud vendor, what is my algorithm, what's my

proprietary data that I'm putting into that quantum computer? So quantum networks can

also help out with the security of those large scale quantum computing

use cases. But that's in the longer term. So to answer

your question, in the tldr, security

is near term and over time there are all these other sorts of

applications in computing and sensing, even some

far fetched ones as well, like quantum money.

There's the potential to have more trustworthy elections and leader

election kinds of applications, secret sharing, there's all

some really cool distributed protocols we can use entanglement

for and we're really excited about those. But you know, as a company

we have to be focused on what's here today, what's commercially viable, what are

folks interested in, what is the market telling us they need

and how can quantum networks serve those needs. So that's front of mind for us,

you know, on the day today. But you know, of course we spend some

time researching these long term applications.

Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned quantum money. Is that some kind of crypto thing?

Because I've never heard that before. Yeah, so it's interesting, quantum

money is actually one of the first

distributed quantum algorithms that was conceived of,

I think it was in the 60s.

I have to double check on that. But the first concepts of quantum money,

yeah, it's decentralized. It's basically using

essentially a quantum signature that can't be forged. So

with today's digital currencies there is, you know, there

are security vulnerabilities and forgery

blockchain is done, you know, designed to be decentralized, of course.

But with quantum money the idea is you can have these

quantum signatures where you can have, you know, let's

say a bank be the only ones to verify whether this piece of

currency is real. So they're fun exercises in

thinking about how these quantum

physics principles can be used for, for money and

to stop forgery. That actually inspired

some of the, the work for quantum key

distribution, which came later. So it's kind of an interesting evolution.

And I've heard Peter Shore talk about this where there's

quantum money that inspired quantum key distribution.

And the folks who invented quantum key distribution asked Peter

Shor to work on a security proof for it. That security proof led

Peter Shor to ultimately discover Shor's algorithm, which

really inspired all the quantum computing progress. So it's, it's kind of

a fun history lesson. But you know, quantum money, while it's very

far looking and very long term application, was one of the first

ideas of quantum networking that came out

in the middle of last century. Interesting, interesting.

So a lot of unpack, a lot to unpack.

But the short thing is, you know, when it comes

to conventional networking, we all understand what a

gigabit is. We all understand what, you know, megabit is like. Are there

similar, like what are the speeds that we're talking about with

quantum networking? Yeah, great question.

There are many factors that go into determining what is

the speed of a quantum network. And the biggest factor

being the distance of your channel. So

if we're doing this in fiber, fiber is quite

lossy and we lose a lot of our flying qubits.

So that really determines what is the maximum rate that

we can transmit quantum data. There's all other

sorts of factors, like how fast are your lasers and your entanglement

sources, how good are your detectors, you know, the quality of your

hardware will determine that, that rate. But

there are analogs, right? We and I touched on this in a recent

research paper I did with, with NIST on quantum

routing, entanglement routing. And in there we start to make some

analogs between, you know, metrics. What,

what are the metrics we know and love from the classical Internet. So things like

throughput bandwidth, you know, your typical

performance metrics. Do those apply to quantum networks? In some cases,

yes, it's a direct analog. In some cases, no, it's a

very different paradigm. In some cases, yes, but it's a

very different kind of unit. So you mentioned throughput

as an example. What are the rates in a quantum network that

could be, you know, qubits per second, it could be entangled pairs per

second. But again, with quantum networks you have this notion

of quality fidelity that you don't have in zeros and ones.

So which brings an interesting question about the

quality of service of these quantum networks. So some applications,

they really need a very high rate of entanglement. They really

need qubits as fast as possible, but they don't care that they need. You

know, if they're 99% fidelity. Other applications,

they don't care if it's, if it's that fast. They just need really

good quality of entanglement. So building a network stack, building

a network that can service these different kinds of applications.

And so you can have these, these knobs that you can tune,

whether that's rate, whether that's fidelity, whether it's the network

complexity and the switching capabilities. There are all sorts

of metrics to think about. But we started to address those questions a

little bit. And I know there are plenty of groups out there thinking about quantum

networking metrics and I think that's something we can work on as a, as a

community to have a common language. What metrics are important, what's going to drive

economic value? How do we start to understand

what these metrics actually mean for commercial use?

Right. I can imagine like at some point in the future you'll be like, in

the distant future, everyone, distant future, I'll be in the

store of a Best Buy or like Micro center and like, hey, this is the

10 gigabit, you know, and this is the

20 gigabit, you know, quantum router or something like that. Like, I mean,

you're right. Like, and does it even make sense? You're right. Like we need to

figure out like, you know, what numbers make sense. Right,

right, right. And is it, you know, you can buy

a box or a laser at a certain rate and you know, there are

those kinds of components available commercial off the shelf today. You can, you

know, buy a photon source that generates, you know, this many

pairs per second at say a gigahertz rate or a kilohertz rate.

It's tuned to this wavelength or that wavelength. Does that make sense for your

application? What kinds of distances could that actually cover point

to point? So there's, there's all other sorts of questions around it. But yeah,

I think, you know, we're starting to see that emerge

and especially over the, the past seven years or so that, that

we've been working at Olero, we've really seen that trend pick up and so

many amazing quantum hardware startups

focused on networking that are building these entanglement sources, these

photon sources, these photon detectors, the quantum switches, all the

components we need quantum memories as well, quantum repeaters that

are, that are being worked on. And we're seeing so much activity

in that space. And as Oliro, we're really focused on

kind of the networking stack and the software part of it.

And we partner with as Many of these companies as we can, in these groups

that have these components that we need to, to build a network and to

actually operate it. So that's been really encouraging to see and I'm

excited to continue that, that to watch that

space and to foster those relationships with, with those companies,

because it does take a village. No one company has all the right pieces, just

like the Internet. There's no, you know, single service provider.

There's no one company that can do it. All right? It takes components from all

sorts of vendors, takes contributions from standards

organizations, from software companies, from hardware companies to build a network

that we can actually use. You've

mentioned several different metrics. Is

there a single metric you trust most when

evaluating the maturity of a quantum system, or

does it always depend on the context?

It's a really great question and a timely one that,

you know, we're working on in some industry consortium, and I was

just at a conference last month talking about this exact thing. Like what,

what are the important metrics? What is the common language and the definition

of these metrics? I think it will be

some combination of these performance

metrics like rate, like fidelity, and like distance,

because those are the. Broadly the things we care about. Right. How,

how broad is this network? You know, what geographies does it cover

that tells us what kinds of applications we can think about.

The rates and the fidelities tell us what kind of, you know, service quality

can this quantum network provide? If it's too slow or if

it's not good enough, then, you know, we can't rely on the security of these

things. Or we. That that's not fast enough to connect quantum

computers over this distance. Right. So knowing that is really

critical, but I think it will be some combination of

speed, of quality, and of distance.

Interesting. Wow. I mean, there's a lot to consider here. Right. Like it's not just

about. And one of the other use cases.

I know we're running low on time, so I have to probably have you come

back. Quantum sensor networks, which, if I, if I were

to posit what quantum networking is for, is you want

to be able to sense the state of the particles and the entanglement

and then be able to send that state over a. What, over a wire?

Bear with me over something. Right.

And then it be preserved on the other side where it could be

read or whatever, done whatever with. Is that. Is that correct?

Yeah, there's. So quantum

sensors are arguably the most mature

subfield of quantum technologies. And quantum sensors have

been around and, you know, we're Talking about clocks, we're talking about

magnetic sensors, sensors for electric fields,

RF sensors, all sorts of sensors that have been worked on for decades and

deployed and used today in systems that we, we use every

day. You know, gps, Right. So quantum

sensors are very mature. But when you bring up

networking quantum sensors, that's, that's really an interesting intersection

point of these two fields where quantum sensors

are great at measuring, you know, something very locally

with great degrees of precision. But when we think

about networking these together and maybe entangling an

array of sensors over a network, that opens the door for some really

interesting applications, both for

geodesy, for mapping, for not relying on gps,

for sensing fluctuations in the magnetic field and the electric field.

Doing better astronomy, how we

collect light from stars and using entanglement to process that light in

better ways so we can have higher resolution for, say, black hole

imaging. There are all sorts of deep science questions

that can be answered with, with quantum sensors in a distributed setting, which

is a really, really exciting frontier that the community is thinking

about deeply. Oh, because the earth rotates, so you could have

a couple of these sensors. So that way you're always pointed at the same

thing in space. Right. And one, yeah,

one first example of this is ligo. So,

you know, basically we have these telescopes

collecting light from stars. And the way things are done today is that,

you know, this light is collected, that data is processed using

classical computers. And all those telescopes around

the world will share their data, they'll bring it together, they'll aggregate it and

they'll process it and try and generate an image or some kind

of data, you know, end result for science.

Now, how quantum changes the game there is, you

know, if these telescopes are actually entangled with each other,

you can process that light in a very different way. Instead of just post processing

it on a classical computer, you can use these, these

global entangled states to sense that light in a very different

way, to process it in a very different way. Ultimately, with the quantum computer,

they're all, you know, sorts of new features. You can think about sensing

and imaging for astronomy in that, in that application.

So yeah, it's a really, really interesting space.

Wow, that's

funny. Sorry, Candice, I'm just going to say. No,

I'm taking it all in. I'm taking it all in.

So what kinds of measurements become possible with quantum

sensor networks that simply can't be done with classical

sensing systems? Yeah,

it's a great question and I think the field is

thinking deeply about this question, you know, where,

so there's Kinds of evolutions of this whereby, you know, we

can have one sensor that's great for many applications. Say it's an

inertial sensor that's awesome for, you know, aircraft

and it has applications

on its own. Then the next generation is, okay, what if we have a

network of sensors but there's no quantum connections between them? They're just,

they're individual quantum sensors that are, that can exchange data with each other

classically. So that has, you know, some

advantages there just as, as an array.

And then the next generation is, oh, what if they are also

entangled with each other? And then you can get more advantage.

So the advantages come in precision and in accuracy.

And as you have these sensors working together, you

can actually enhance the precision that way. So

there's something called the standard quantum limit where there's a

square root performance benefit with the number of sensors you have.

So if you have K sensors working together, you can get that square

root K advantage in your precision and accuracy. So

there are, you know, there's a lot of great theory kind of backing this up.

I think the field writ large is thinking about, you know, what are those

killer applications, you know, in the near term, in the medium term,

you know, we have quantum networking on its own as a field, we have quantum

sensing on its own as a field. So how do we intersect these, these two

timelines and roadmaps and technology to actually work together

to solve certain problems in science and position, navigation,

timing and astronomy, all sorts of application areas.

Wow, that's cool. I mean, I just, it's just

mind blowing. Like what? Because you know, you hear about the hype

about quantum computers, you don't think about the networking. Right. Networking doesn't

always come up in the hype cycle. Right. However,

very clearly, like you said, like, you know, you don't need to have a quantum

computer to do quantum networking. Right. I would imagine that these

photon generators and things like that, they probably don't need to be super cooled.

Guessing. So you could have this

today with relatively modest

comparatively investment. Oh yeah, that's definitely right.

Yeah. Quantum computers probably cost on the order of tens of millions of

dollars and quantum networks orders of magnitude less than

that. And there are off the shelf components you can buy and start to piece

together these networks. There are all

sorts of quantum photon sources and entanglement

generators and photon detectors, all with different trade offs. Right.

Some are tuned to certain wavelengths.

Right. They want to operate in the telecom regime. Others are great for

visible light and free space. And that may lend itself better to say

A satellite link or an inter satellite link. Some

lasers might be better for fiber networks. Some lasers are

faster than others, but generate a different kind of entanglement.

So a lot of what we think about is like, okay, you have this landscape

out there of all sorts of components and different approaches to

generating quantum light. How do we stitch them together? How do

these components actually interoperate with each other, not just at the

physical level, but over a network? How can they communicate

with each other? What is a quantum network node? It's a collection of

dozens of these things, right? You're going to have switches and photon sources

and detectors. But it needs to be useful. There needs to be some

logic, some control, some timing and synchronization

infrastructure that actually supports all of these great

applications. So that's what we spend most of our time thinking about,

is building out these abstraction layers in the network stack to actually get these

components to talk to each other in a useful way.

Wow. So this seems to me like this could be a burgeoning career field. Really,

like a quantum network engineer? Absolutely,

yeah. And I think that's testament to how we've built our team

and grown the team over time. It takes a village.

And I think within all the subdomains of

quantum. I would say quantum networking is the most interdisciplinary.

We have folks on staff that are the PhD quantum physicists, but

we have folks that worked in classical networking and built

the products that power the Internet. They know what it takes to build a network

stack. They know what it takes to deploy a system in a data center

or for a telecommunications company. What does it take to have

five nines of service reliability? That's something in the classical

networking space is a must have. So taking those lessons learned

from the classical networking world, combining that with the quantum

expertise, and of course all of the amazing backgrounds

we need to actually build products and reliable

software products. So we have traditional software engineers, but out in the field,

we're going to need traditional fiber engineers as well.

So that's something that I'm excited to see over the coming years,

is a workforce development for quantum networking and having

upskilling programs to make this

less daunting, to lower the barrier to entry. There are

so many great engineers out there, and

they don't need a PhD level quantum education to be

to have a career in quantum networking. There are trade schools that

train fiber engineers today, and those folks can be

absolutely useful with minimal training, you know, to set

up this infrastructure, to monitor it, to, you know, go out and learn how

to, you know, fix some issues. That we might see in the network to do

updates, to do, you know, ads and changes, and to

scale the network. There are all sorts of field engineering that we're

going to need to really make this a reality. You know, we talk about the

quantum Internet. We're well, well away from that. But,

you know, right now we're, we're at the point where you do see these

metropolitan regions, these local area networks. There's dozens and

dozens of them around the world. What's the natural next step is to start

connecting them over longer distances. And you know, that

that's how we're going to get there. But it, it doesn't take only quantum

PhDs to do that. You know, we need practical engineering expertise, we

need classical engineering expertise to really make this a reality.

It's a good way to put it. As I like to say, someone has to

rack them and stack them. That's right, yeah.

So we always ask this of everybody. So what is the biggest

misconception that you hear out there about

quantum computing that you would like to reframe or just let them

know this is, this is wrong? What's one of the

biggest misconceptions out there?

You know, I think for many years

that I've been in this space, the misconception was that

there is going to be one single

winner of quantum computing. There's going to be a winning platform

and that's going to look like a huge chandelier

that has millions and millions of qubits on it.

That's not the case. The future of quantum computing is going to be

heterogeneous. I think different kinds of qubits will play different

roles. I think,

apart from, you know,

maybe certain modalities. I think broadly, most

of the quantum computing approaches will need to be networked. That's the only way

they're going to reach scale. The difference is how many

qubits can I get before I have to think about networking?

Some might be on the order of a couple thousand. Others think

they can scale on a single chip or a single atomic

system to say 50 or 100,000 qubits,

and then they need to network. So there's some difference there. But regardless,

to get to the utility scale of quantum computing, you're going to need to network

them. And that's something I'd like to shed some more light on. And I'm glad

the community has kind of woken up and

seen the need for networking these computers together

recently. And that wasn't always the case. So I still think

it's somewhat of a misconception. But for quantum computing

to realize that they need to network, I mean IBM just announced their

plans to network their computers just to few months ago.

Right. So you know, we're starting to see that shift. But

yeah, shining more light on that is really important. Interesting.

You had mentioned a couple times something called free space.

I think I know what that means, but I don't think I do like

totally. Is this kind of like white space spectrum

that's available or something else? Yeah, so free

space we use as a term to describe a

quantum channel that's not over fiber. So okay,

it's wireless now. There is a caveat there. So

you know the WI fi router I'm using now can those signals can

permeate through walls and things.

The quantum signals, at least for quite some time,

will need to be line of sight when you're talking about point

to point free space. But

there have been satellite deployments, we're working on some, some satellite deployments

as well for quantum networks with our partners in

the aerospace sector, which is really, really exciting. That's

a critical part of the quantum Internet. It's not just going to be fiber.

If you really want to generate entanglement cross continents,

cross oceans, we're going to need a satellite infrastructure to do that.

But you do need this line of sight. And so that's

what free space means for quantum networking. We

won't be able to have a quantity quantum WI fi unless there's some, you know,

huge advancements and physics breakthroughs in terms of like

microwave photons, but we can't depend on that. I

think it's safe to say that, you know, the quantum communication will be

line of sight. So you need to be able to see your end node.

Yeah. We had a previous guest, Dr. Catania

Kuntz, had mentioned that they basically has. It's

whatever she uses in her research is probably not limited to some flavor of

infrared light and things like that, but

okay, free space. I thought when you said free space I thought you meant like

spectrum that's available or whatever. The TV white

space is what people used to call it, but that means something completely different.

That's really cool and thank you for

explaining that. Any parting thoughts? Where can

folks find out more about you, more about what LERO is doing?

Yeah, sure. You know, I'm really, really

excited to get the chance to talk about quantum networking and its

importance not just in security and for,

you know, governments and companies today, but

also all the cool applications that that can be

derived from quantum networking. I think Security is

one that draws a lot of the attention. But you

know, we do play some of that fear motivation. Right. We need to prepare

our infrastructure for the quantum attacks. Absolutely. Like we need to drive

that urgency. But at the same time, this is an infrastructure play.

Right. This is, this quantum Internet that we talk about

has all sorts of amazing applications and I'm sure a lot that we

haven't even dreamt of. Just like the Internet, right as it was getting started, we

did not think about a Facebook or, you know, this,

all the Internet services that we TikTok, brain rot, all that stuff.

Yeah, probably not thought about. Yeah.

You know, there's a lot of room for innovation and it's a really, really exciting

field to be in. And so I really appreciate the

opportunity to talk about it today. Feel free to reach out.

We do also run a webinar series as well if you want to

learn more about what a quantum network is. How does it work,

what are the, you know, the trade offs, you know, everything from a

101 to what does it look like to deploy a quantum satellite?

We try and address all those topics in an educational way. So feel free

to check out our website, check out that webinar series if you want to learn

more about quantum networking. And as always, feel free to reach out to me as

well. Very cool. Any parting thoughts, Candice?

No. Thank you so much for this conversation. I think the

quantum networking is absolutely fascinating and we're

hearing more about it from the different perspectives. So I'm just really happy that we,

we got to hear about it from yours. So thank you again for your time.

Of course. It's an honor being here. Thanks so much. Thank you for coming. And

I really, I really learned quite a bit today.

I hope our listeners did too. And with that, we'll play the outro music.

And it's gold.

The multiverse is skanking Skanking in time Black holes

are wailing in a horn line so fine From Planck scales to planets they're

connecting the dots Candace and Frank they're the cosmic

Han shots.

Quantum podcast turn it up fast Candace and Frank

blowing my mind at last Quantum podcast They're breaking

the mold Science has got beats it's bold

and it's gold.