Advances in quantum networking: Highlights from Cisco’s Quantum Research Summit 2024

This year’s Cisco Quantum Summit was full of insightful information and discussions about the challenges and opportunities in quantum networking.

Cisco Research’s Head of Quantum Research, Reza Nejabati, Ph.D., emceed the event and introduced Cisco’s vision for a practical quantum network that is dynamic, scalable, multi-user, and multi-tenant. 

Keynotes and panel discussion during the Cisco Quantum Summit 2024 

The summit opened with an engaging series of keynote presentations from prominent leaders in industry and academia, covering a wide range of topics from the practical deployment and implementation of quantum networks to device fabrication requirements, protocols, and applications. 

Building a practical quantum network from security to distributed quantum computing 

We began with Andrew Lord, senior manager, optical networks and quantum research and fellow at British Telecom (BT), who delivered an insightful overview of ongoing efforts to integrate quantum networks into BT’s infrastructure for security applications. This initiative marks a crucial step to learn lessons and overcome challenges, ultimately aiming to establish a more versatile quantum network for quantum computing and quantum sensor interconnects.

Advances in entanglement distribution protocols 

The second keynote, presented by Don Towsley, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst provided a clear analysis of the challenges and potential solutions for creating a protocol for quantum entanglement distribution networks—an essential component for developing a practical and functional quantum network, particularly for distributed quantum computing. 

Building scalable quantum technologies for network and computing 

Our third speaker, Prineha Narang, Ph.D., a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, offered an excellent overview of the state of the art in device fabrication for quantum networks. She highlighted the existing challenges, barriers, and potential solutions, with a specific focus on quantum networks for quantum computing interconnects. 

Network for distributed quantum computing 

Finally, the last keynote, from Elham Kashefi, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Edinburgh focused on medium-term applications for quantum networks and quantum computers, emphasizing the implementation and validation of secure computing.

Quantum network use cases and architecture from security to distributed computing 

Following the keynotes, we hosted a lively panel discussion moderated by Ramana Kompella, Ph.D., Head of Cisco Research. The panel primarily centered around the future prospects of a practical quantum network and its use cases, both in the near and long term. It was fascinating to see a broad consensus among the panelists that a quantum network, with real-life applications beyond security, could become a reality in less than 10 years.

Technical talks from the Cisco Quantum Summit 2024

The second part of the summit consisted of focused technical talks covering topics such as networked quantum memory test beds, entanglement of nanophotonic quantum memory nodes, and more.

Architectures for quantum data center networks 

Hassan Shapourian’s, Ph.D., presentation detailed Cisco's vision for a quantum data center and the reasons behind Cisco's plan to build it as part of a general quantum network application.  

This quantum data center would have the capability to execute numerous quantum circuits, features dynamic network interconnection, and utilizes various entanglement generation protocols. The presentation also introduced a software stack designed for network-aware orchestration, meaning that the execution of quantum circuits is optimized by considering the network topology and being resource aware.   

Networked quantum memory test bed 

Next, we heard from Ben Dixon, Ph.D., from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory. He talked about some exciting work surrounding quantum networks testbeds in Boston, connecting MIT and Harvard University, and their latest efforts with introducing quantum memories in the Boston testbed. They have integrated fiber compensation and a quantum memory into the testbed and have been able to demonstrate the transfer of a transmitted qubit into a quantum memory. Their final goal is to develop a scalable module of ten or more quantum memories that can interface with optical and microwave control signals.  

Entanglement of nanophotonic quantum memory nodes 

Can Knaut from Harvard discussed his team’s development and demonstration of Silicon vacancy (SiV) quantum memories inside an elementary quantum network. By integrating the SiV into a photonic waveguide and coupled with taped fibers, entanglement between two nuclear spins in two quantum memories located 35 km away from each other has been successfully demonstrated. This work indicates a promising future of metropolitan scale multi-nodes quantum network based on SiV quantum memories. 

Optically networking superconducting quantum computers

Optically networking superconducting quantum computers coherently transforming information from microwave photons to telecom photons is extremely challenging. Tasshi Dennis, Ph.D., and his team from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and JILA have developed a high-efficiency vibrating membrane transducer to achieve such a task. To overcome the noise from the device, squeezed states are used to interconnect transducers and the superconducting quantum computers and then distribute the entanglement between two quantum computers. Such an approach can overcome the bottleneck challenges in scaling up superconducting quantum computers.

Multi-formalism quantum hardware modeling 

Stefan Krastanov, Ph.D., a professor at UMass Amherst, introduced an open-source quantum simulator developed under the sponsorship of the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Quantum Networks (CQN), aimed at providing better design guidelines and enabling experimentalists to validate their work before physical testbeds are operational. His presentation focused on a full-stack design and optimization toolkit based on symbolic descriptions of quantum logic, enabling quantum simulations to be seamlessly executed across multiple simulation backends. Krastanov also discussed the trade-offs between different simulation backends, highlighting the balance between capability and efficiency in various methods.

Quantum computing meets quantum networking: Control system co-design for teleportation-based operations 

Finally, Kasra Nowrouzi, Ph.D., and Akel Hashim. Ph.D., from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory highlighted the Advanced Quantum Testbed's development of full-stack superconducting quantum computing platforms. The presentation showcased a co-designed classical and quantum system, QubiC, as the first open-source control system for superconducting quantum computers and emphasized QubiC’s hardware-efficient randomized compiling (HE-RC). HE-RC accelerates mid-circuit measurements and feedforward on a FPGA. Teleportation-based operations for quantum networking utilizing this technology were highlighted, with all protocols described implemented in constant circuit depth. 

You can now watch the full summit and learn even more from these incredible speakers on the Cisco Research Quantum Summit page. Stay tuned for the next Quantum Summit in January 2025!