About CryptQ

Building a universal quantum computer is a formidable task. However, we have seen significant progress in recent years, and in October 2019 Google announced the first realization of so-called “quantum supremacy”, where a quantum computer solves a mathematical problem significantly faster than the world’s best high performance computer.

With the advent of sufficiently powerful universal quantum computers, the widely used public key cryptographic schemes become exposed, and the security of data communications – the backbone of the information society – will be compromised. It is very difficult to predict how soon this will happen. Estimates range from 10 to 30 years [Mos19], and less, if a sudden breakthrough is achieved. Since it may take 5 to 15 years to change from the currently used cryptographic schemes to quantum secure cryptography it is time to get started.

In CryptQ, we will address this critical issue by developing a quantum cryptographic system that provides full security against even the most powerful future attacks. We will test our cost-effective and telecom-compatible system in two complementary end-user cases: Ultra-secure transmission of financial data between two data centres, and ultra-secure control of a power grid.