HellasQCI Project is demonstrating at the prestigious European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC24) a fully managed field deployed three-node QKD relayed network, in a ring configuration in Athens of a maximum distance of 45km, where each node comprises a fully integrated vertical stack. The paper which will be presented on Thursday the 26th of September, is co-authored by GRNET, the Coordinator of the HellasQCI and NKUA, the technical Coordinator of the project.

The European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC), one of Europe’s leading conferences on optical communications, brings together experts and leaders from academia, research and industry across the globe to share latest breakthroughs and visions for the future.

HellasQCI participates at this year’s ECOC2024 conference with a Paper Presentation titled “Field Demonstration of a Fully Managed, L1 Encrypted 3-Node Network with Hybrid Relayed-QKD and Centralized Symmetric Classical Key Management” in a collaborative effort by GRNET, NKUA, Nokia, EvolutionQ and IDQuantique.

In this publication, the network’s stable operation providing Layer 1 (OTNsec) data encryption with quantum keys is demonstrated. In case of an attack or unavailability of quantum keys, the HellasQCI network setup is capable of seamlessly transitioning to classical encryption with symmetric quantum-safe keys provided by the central security manager (SMS), exhibiting, thus, a reliable hybrid network operation and ensuring the continuous supply of keys. Notably, the keys were consumed in all three nodes, including the intermediate relayed node, and the HellasQCI demonstrated that the operations, including relaying, recover against various attacks.

The network employs a hybrid scheme of QKD and classical yet quantum-safe centrally-generated symmetric keys to support point-to-point and relay consumers.

More information on ECOC24 conference: https://www.ecoc2024.org/