Conference: Quantum Networks Application Roadmap 2.0 Workshop

About This Grant

Nontechnical: Commercialization of quantum networks is a key goal for the Engineering Research Center for Quantum Networks (CQN). Toward identifying the commercial applications of the quantum networks, CQN is actively working on developing corresponding application roadmaps. In an early effort, the industry partners at CQN developed the Quantum Networks Application Roadmap (QNAR) 1.0 published in 2022. In a new attempt to update the roadmap, CQN has partnered with the Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C) for a one-year project to expand the previous effort and develop QNAR 2.0. QED-C is the largest international public-private consortium for quantum technologies with 188 member companies. This partnership combines CQN’s technical leadership in quantum networks with QED-C’s experience with industry roadmap development toward CQN’s mission for commercialization. Also, such a partnership further establishes CQN as a leading center for quantum networking technology. Technical The technical goal of CQN ERC is to develop and integrate all the key technologies to realize fault-tolerant quantum networking, by demonstrating: (1) the underlying device functionalities—viz., to entangle remote telecom-compatible quantum memory registers—built with integrated-photonic chips that are high-efficiency-coupled to millions of Silicon- and Tin-vacancy color centers—mediated by high-fidelity high-rate photonic entanglement generated by the zero-added-loss-multiplexing source, (2) scale these up to demonstrate quantum repeater networks designed using scalable multiplexed color-center repeater nodes interspersed with quantum-logic-rich trapped-ion-qubit-based repeater nodes to facilitate quantum error correction, and (3) design architectures and protocols for the quantum internet that seamlessly interoperate with the classical internet, to demonstrate a suite of carefully-chosen multi-user-group algorithms for routing entanglement, scheduling parallel quantum communication and use cases in distributed sensing, at our testbeds in Tucson, Boston and Maryland. These testbeds serve as a proving ground for our research, education and workforce development, and facilitate access to R&D partnerships with CQN’s 20+ industry-member innovation ecosystem. CQN’s engineering research coordinates with social science research on security and privacy laws, developing a measurable index to quantify the goodness of quantum networks as they develop and grow, studying unintended biases in quantum-network-driven applications, and implications of open-source quantum cloud access. As a public-private partnership of academia, the industrial base, leading international partners, national labs and partners, the CQN ERC is a world leading full-stack quantum networking program that serves as an American national hub for advancing the development of the quantum internet and road mapping its anticipated applications and societal impacts. CQN will continue to build on its successes in developing a new discipline--Quantum Information Science and Engineering (QISE), with interdisciplinary courses spanning our member universities, to train the future US quantum engineering workforce. CQN’s EWD program will also build on its highly popular Winter School to create an internationally renowned resource for quantum networking education, and an EWD Fellowship that funds innovative ideas in quantum education. CQN, in concert with its industry advisory board, will develop a certificate program to equip industry engineers to pursue quantum upgrades to appropriate technologies and use cases. Under the unique leadership of a quantum information scientist and a quantum device engineer, this highly interdisciplinary University of Arizona led ERC draws from core partner institutions MIT, University of Maryland, University of Massachusetts Amherst and Harvard University - along with member institutions University of Oregon, Northern Arizona University, University of Chicago, and Brigham Young University. CQN also enjoys the support of a strong industry consortium and the leading international partners in advancing quantum internet technology through advisory boards. The CQN ERC will help to support the strategic vision that is laid out in a 2020 White House memorandum on America's Quantum Networks. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.