“Teleporting quantum information is now a practical reality,” asserts Deutsche Telekom. The firm’s T‑Labs used commercially available Qunnect hardware to demo quantum teleportation over 30km of live, commercial Berlin fiber, running alongside classical internet traffic. In an email to Tom’s Hardware, Deutsche Telekom’s PR folks said that Cisco also ran the same hardware and demo process to connect data centers in NYC.
Many believed that readying quantum networks for a future quantum internet would require the deployment of new infrastructure. However, in both the Berlin and NYC demos, the qubits didn't travel through the existing fibers; they teleported from one end to another.
The demos
Last month, T-Labs completed the first practical test of the core components required for a future quantum internet, which would work by teleporting data. Central to the demo was Qunnect’s Carina platform, which integrates an entanglement generator, producing pairs of quantum-entangled photons for distribution over telecom fiber.
The experiment saw the recreation of an identical quantum particle at the destination “using pre-shared quantum entanglement rather than transmitting a physical particle,” explains Deutsche Telecom.
“Our fiber optic network is quantum ready,” said 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 fiberoptics outside of a laboratory. “
There are a few wrinkles still to iron out, though. The official PR notes that the average accuracy of the teleported data is 90%. Deutsche Telecom and Qunnect also want to network quantum computers over longer distances, more locations, and multi-node teleportation configurations.
Still, it is pleasing that this milestone has been reached, with the building blocks of teleportation already operating across a real network. The teleportation wavelength used was 795nm, which is said to be a sweet spot for integration with platforms such as neutral-atom quantum computers, atomic clocks, and various quantum sensors.
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A milestone
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