Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Frequently Asked Questions

The Quantum Technologies Flagship is a long-term research and innovation initiative that aims to put Europe at the forefront of the second quantum revolution. The Quantum Technologies Flagship aims to support the work of hundreds of quantum researchers over 10 years, with an expected budget of €1 billion from the EU.

The aim of the QCI is to build a quantum secure communication shield across the EU that would protect our economy and society from cyber threats. The QCI's main function will be to allow quantum key distribution (QKD), an ultra-secure form of encryption.

EuroQCI (European Quantum Communication Infrastructure) Initiative aims to build a secure quantum communication infrastructure that will span the whole EU, including its overseas territories.

At the end of 2019, Greece signed the European Quantum Communication Infrastructure (EuroQCI) Declaration, signalling its commitment to the EuroQCI initiative, which aims to build a highly secure quantum communication infrastructure (QCI) that will span the whole European Union.
Being the south-east border of Europe, and in view of the latest geopolitical challenges, Greece’s commitment is of strategic importance for the success of EuroQCI. In response to this commitment, HellasQCI is a EU funded project that intends to built the National QCI of Greece.

National Infrastructures for Research and Technology (GRNET): GRNET is the National Research and Education Network in Greece (NREN) and the coordinator of the HellasQCI proposal. GRNET is a state-owned company, operating under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Digital Governance (MinDig) and providing advanced e-Infrastructures and services for Public Administration, Education, Research, Health & Culture sectors. GRNET has been appointed by the Ministry of Digital Governance as the responsible entity for coordinating the national EuroQCI related proposals for the DEP and CEF calls. GRNET holds a key role as the coordinator of all e-infrastructure services in Education and Research in Greece and is the leader in a coordinated effort for development of e-infrastructures and services in Southeast Europe (SEEREN, SEE-GRID series, HP-SEE, VI-SEEM, NI4OS-Europe projects). GRNET operates a backbone network covering the whole national territory: more than 9000 km of dark fibers, operated by GRNET-owned equipment, with several 10Gbps connections to 50 Institutions. Moreover, GRNET is the leading cloud computing and data infrastructure for R&E community in Greece and beyond and owns 135 racks, 1800+ servers, 7000 Virtual Machines active, 5 Petabytes of storage.

HellasQCI consists of the main research and education institutions in Greece with proven experience to QKD technologies (NKUA, ICCS, FORTH, AUTH, NCSRD), the Observatories managing the 3 OGSs (NOA, AUTH, FORTH), the Public Sector such as the Ministry of Digital Governance (MinDig), the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Moreover, the consortium includes major industry players from the telecommunication sector (COSM), the energy sector (MOH), and SMEs (QUBI, SPH) that offer innovative solutions and integration tools. The University of Luxembourg (UNILU) the coordinator of Luxembourg’s National QCI proposal (LuxQCI) and the Walton Institute, Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) the coordinator of Irish’s National QCI proposal (IrishQCI) are Associated Partners (AP) in HellasQCI proposal, and mutually GRNET, the coordinator of the HellasQCI proposal is AP in their proposals.

HellasQCI intends to create a flourishing National ecosystem for Quantum Communication Technologies ecosystem. All organisations/companies will be able to join this ecosystem. This community will closely follow the results from the building of the HellasQCI systems and networks and will also enable large companies, quantum start-ups and SMEs to shape their goals to create differentiated values in this ecosystem.

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