European Quantum Communication Infrastructure (EuroQCI)

Short description:

In June 2019, seven EU Member States (MS) signed the EuroQCI Declaration, signalling their commitment to the EuroQCI initiative. All other MS have subsequently joined them.

Today, Europe’s critical infrastructures and sensitive communications and data are vulnerable to cyber-attacks and other security threats. In addition, advances in supercomputing and the advent of quantum computing may soon undermine modern encryption systems, threatening the security of transmitted data and secure access to remotely stored data in the long term. To keep the EU’s government data, smart energy grids, air traffic control, banks, healthcare facilities and other critical communications infrastructure safe in the medium and long term, the EU must develop new and more secure forms of encryption and devise new ways of protecting the EU’s critical communication and data assets.

The initiative addresses this challenge. It aims to provide an unprecedented way of securing communications and data, supplementing current software-based security systems with physical security and becoming the EU’s cybersecurity shield for the coming decades.

The EuroQCI infrastructure will integrate quantum cryptography and innovative and secure quantum products and systems into conventional communication infrastructures, enhancing them with an additional layer of security based on quantum physics. The infrastructure will consist of a terrestrial segment relying on fibre communication networks linking strategic sites at national and cross-border level, and a space segment based on satellites, and linking national quantum communication networks all over the EU and worldwide. It will also include a testing and compliance infrastructure for assessing the compliance of technologies with the new infrastructure and their certification and validation, with a view to their possible integration.

In this workshop we will outline the challenges posed by this ambitious endeavour and the strategies to fulfil EuroQCI objectives. In the final roundtable we will discuss the different kind of applications for institutional stakeholders and telecommunication operators.

Ground Segment
I Session
Chair: Davide Calonico, INRIM

Space Segment
II Session
Chair: Davide Bacco, DTU

Round Table
Chair: Paolo De Natale, CNR-INO