The First Mobile Station For Quantum Communication

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New mobile quantum communication station weighs just 80 kilograms and fits on top of a regular car. A Chinese team connected to the quantum satellite Mocius and sent a quantum key from Jinan to Shanghai.

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Image by PIRO4D from Pixabay

Chinese Quantum Domination

Quantum communication is gaining speed. Lately, it has been primarily China who has been driving the research forward and record speeds. And the news only confirms Chinas firm grip over being best in quantum communication. The news says that China has built and tested the first mobile terrestrial station for sending and receiving secure quantum communication. This station recently successfully connected to the Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) satellite also known as Mocius.

Ji-Gang Ren from the University of Science and Technology of China and his colleagues used the mobile quantum communication stations to securely transfer data from Jinan in northeast China. Originally the Chinese used a stationary terrestrial station that weighed over 10 tons. Yet, the new mobile station weighs just 80 kilograms and is small enough to fit on the roof of a car.

Quantum From Jinan To Shanghai

As Ren states, this reduction in size was not easy and came with some drawbacks. The speed of data transfer was reduced from roughly 40 thousand bits per second that the stationary station is capable of 4-10 thousand bites per second.

The team of Chinese quantum scientists used the mobile quantum station to securely distribute keys between the sender and receiver. In such communication, photons are transferred and used to transfer a secret key for encrypting and decrypting the messages. One such key was transferred from the mobile quantum station that went to Jinan into one of the large quantum communication stations in Shanghai.

One of the motivations behind the development of the mobile station for quantum communication was the demands of their current users such as the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC). They wished for the equipment needed for quantum communication wouldn't require building special infrastructure. ICBC and the Peoples Bank of China are already using satellite quantum communication between distant cities such as Beijing in the northeast of China and Ürümqi (Wushi) in the northwest of China.

Ren and his team want to send a quantum nano-satellite into space in the next two years that will be used by commercial customers. They want more and more people to use quantum communication to secure their data. But we should also keep in mind that many government agencies and armies from countries all around the world will be keeping a keen eye on any quantum technologies.

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