Deutsche Telekom (DT)'s T-Labs division has paired with quantum networking firm Qunnect to carry out a quantum teleportation over a commercial network in Berlin.

According to the German telco, the demonstration is a significant milestone in advancing deployable quantum technologies on existing telecommunications infrastructure.

The intention of the test was to demonstrate how the usage of newly commercialized technologies can be used to overcome instabilities and interferences in existing telecom infrastructure.

As part of the test, T-Labs and Qunnect demonstrated how a telecommunications operator can integrate quantum teleportation capabilities into operational networks, noted Deutsche Telekom.

Trials were conducted in a real-world telecom environment last month. During the trials, DT was able to achieve quantum teleportation over 30 km (11.6 miles) of commercial fiber cables.

The experiment was performed using Qunnect’s commercially available quantum entanglement distribution hardware and Deutsche Telekom’s Berlin quantum infrastructure, explained the telco, which noted that the trial represented the first practical test of core components required for a future teleportation service.

"Quantum ready"

“Our fiber optic network is quantum ready,” says Abdu Mudesir, Telekom board member for product and technology. "In Berlin, we have now proven that quantum information can be transmitted over 30 kilometers of commercial Telekom fiber optics outside of a laboratory. This is done in parallel with regular data traffic and with a very high average accuracy of 90 percent.

"With quantum teleportation, we are laying the technical foundation for networking quantum computers over longer distances in the future and pooling computing power in more than one location. This will create the next generation of secure communication and a building block for Europe's technological sovereignty."

The demo itself teleported qubits generated by a weak coherent source over a 30-km fiber loop connecting T-Lab’s Quantum Lab to a node on the Berlin fiber testbed.

Qunnect supported the trial via its Carina platform, which integrates an entanglement generator that produces pairs of quantum-entangled photons for distribution over telecom fiber, along with a polarization compensation component that counteracts environmentally induced noise in both buried and aerial fiber, which enables high-rate, high-fidelity transport of quantum bits between network nodes.

The trial achieved teleportation fidelities at an average of 90 percent, according to the preliminary publication of the data. At its peak, an accuracy of 95 percent was reached. Teleportation fidelity is the measurement of how accurately a quantum state is transferred from a sender to a receiver.

DT points out that the teleportation part is done at a wavelength (795nm), which it claims is essential for many platforms such as neutral-atom quantum computers, atomic clocks, and various quantum sensors.

The telco states that quantum teleportation is a key building block for the future quantum Internet, enabling the transfer of quantum information between distant locations.

“Teleportation is a novel tool for moving information around networks leveraging quantum physics,” added Mael Flament, chief technology officer, Qunnect. “We are showing the building blocks of teleportation can operate inside a real network, in real racks, under operator control, advancing it from a laboratory experiment to something a telecommunications provider can deploy.”

Deutsche Telekom points out a number of potential use cases for quantum teleportation for quantum networks, including quantum cryptography, distributed quantum computing, secure cloud-based quantum services, "paving the way for quantum data centers, and networks of highly sensitive quantum sensors."