Toshiba wins Calgary's Quantum City challenge for securing critical infrastructure

[Riley70]

Toshiba International Corporation has won the Quantum City Global Challenge in its Securing Critical Infrastructure track, Quantum Zeitgeist reports. The track is run by Quantum City in Calgary, the City of Calgary and Numana, with support from Alberta Innovates. It drew proposals from eight countries. The challenge was framed around harvest now, decrypt later attacks, where data captured today could be decrypted once quantum computers are powerful enough

Toshiba's winning system uses quantum key distribution to share quantum safe encryption keys over the city's existing fibre network. It explores protection for water systems, energy grids and emergency response. A live demonstration is running at Calgary's Wave Tech Centre. Using existing fibre is a big part of the appeal, because laying new cable across a city is expensive and slow

KETS Quantum Security received an honourable mention. KETS is a Bristol based company, and its entry used a chip based approach to build quantum safe encryption into standard telecoms equipment. Chris Erven from KETS said the threat of a quantum computer breaking secure communications is today's problem, not tomorrow's. That neatly sums up the whole harvest now, decrypt later argument

The city itself sounds keen. Monique Nesset from the City of Calgary said the city is responsible for making sure the systems connecting the services Calgarians rely on remain secure and dependable. Terry Cronin from Toshiba said the company helps organisations build secure, future ready networks. It is nice to see a city government taking the threat seriously rather than leaving it all to national agencies

Toshiba has been one of the steadiest names in QKD for years, with long running work in Cambridge and trials around the world. This win adds a North American city to that list. I am pleased to see a UK company like KETS recognised too, even if it was not the outright winner. Small chip based QKD could end up mattering more than big rack systems in the long run

Is QKD worth the cost for city infrastructure, or is post quantum cryptography enough? And should more UK cities run challenges like this?

Toshiba Wins Quantum City Prize For Secure Communication Techquantumzeitgeist.com

[AJStyles_Submission]

Harvest now, decrypt later is the argument that keeps all of this moving. It is hard to prove when the threat becomes real, but the logic is simple. If someone records traffic today and keeps it, the clock is already ticking

Utilities in particular have data with a very long shelf life. Records from water companies and power grids stay sensitive for decades

[Luca73]

Manchester or Birmingham should try something like this. Both have universities with quantum research and plenty of critical infrastructure

A city level challenge brings in companies that might otherwise never pitch to local government. It costs very little compared with what it could reveal

[Thor Nathan]

QKD and post quantum cryptography are not rivals in my view. PQC is software and can be rolled out everywhere quickly, while QKD gives an extra layer for the most sensitive links

Water and power systems seem like a reasonable place to use both. The cost only makes sense for critical sites, though. Defence in depth is the standard approach for anything important. Two independent layers make sense

[AJStyles04]

Running over existing fibre is the key detail. Earlier QKD systems often needed dark fibre or dedicated links, which made deployment painful. If Toshiba can share infrastructure with ordinary traffic, the cost case gets much better

That is probably what won it. Cost was always the barrier with QKD. Lowering it changes the conversation

[VoidWalker13]

Calgary branding itself as a quantum city is an interesting move. Alberta has been pushing hard to diversify away from oil and gas, and quantum tech is part of that. The University of Calgary has a decent quantum research group too. Challenges like this put the city on the map. Smart move by the city

[Debbie96]

Glad KETS got a mention. Bristol has a strong quantum photonics group and KETS has been working on chip based QKD for years. Getting it into ordinary telecoms kit is the right goal

Nobody is going to install a fridge sized box in every exchange. An honourable mention against a giant like Toshiba is a good result for a small firm