DRDO-IIT Delhi demonstrate quantum communication between Prayagraj & Vindhyachal

For the first time in the country, a joint team of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and IIT-Delhi scientists successfully demonstrated Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) link between Prayagraj and Vindhyachal, Uttar Pradesh a distance of more than 100 kms, DRDO said in a statement on Wednesday.

This technological breakthrough was achieved over a commercial-grade optical fiber already available in the field. "With this success, country has demonstrated indigenous technology of secure key transfer for bootstrapping military grade communication security key hierarchy," the statement added.

The performance parameters have been measured and have been found to be repetitively within the reported international standards at sifted key rates of up to 10 KHz.

In the QKD technology, encryption keys are sent as qubits in a fibre optic cable. Quantum computing uses qubits as basic resources, similar to how bits are used as basic resources in classical computing.

The QKD is designed in a way that if an illegitimate entity tries to read the transmission, it will disturb the qubits - which are encoded on photons - and this will generate transmission errors, leading to legitimate end users being immediately informed.