"Qunnect and Cisco have unveiled what they say is the first entanglement-swapping demonstration of its kind over deployed metro-scale fibre using a commercial quantum networking system. The demonstration combined Qunnect's room-temperature quantum hardware with Cisco's quantum networking software stack. The net result of the project is regarded by the partners as being able to bring practical quantum networks closer to scalable deployment, validating a spoke-and-hub model for scaling quantum networks through commercial datacentres."
"Qunnect believes that one of the challenges in scaling real-world quantum networks is the practical realisation of protocols to route entanglement between network nodes. To achieve that, it says, requires entanglement "swapping". That is, the operation that extends entanglement from two nodes to multiple ones through an intermediate hub. Swapping itself is already established in quantum science, but the tech firms stress that performing it on telecom-compatible infrastructure under real-world constraints has remained rare in the industry. Loss, noise and hardware complexity make it far more challenging outside of controlled laboratory settings."
"In addition, current quantum networks can be constrained by a complex physical "tether", relying on a shared master laser to connect all nodes. By using Qunnect's independent atomic sources, the experiment looked to remove the need for nodes to be physically "tethered" by shared lasers. To validate their model, Cisco and Qunnect conducted a demonstration on the latter's GothamQ testbed, which runs throughout New York City in a network that spans 17.6km of deployed telecom fibre connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan."
Qunnect and Cisco demonstrated entanglement swapping across deployed metro-scale fibre using a commercial quantum networking system that combined room-temperature atomic hardware with a network software stack. The effort validated a spoke-and-hub scaling model through commercial datacentres and aimed to enable ultra-secure links, quantum-safe architectures, and connections between distributed quantum processors and datacentres. The experiment employed independent atomic sources to remove the need for a shared master laser tether. Performing swapping on telecom-compatible infrastructure addressed loss, noise, and hardware complexity challenges encountered outside controlled laboratory environments and advanced entanglement-routing protocols.
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