We kicked off the SEQRET project in Fürth, Germany at KEEQuant’s offices in a two-day meeting, packed with discussions on different topics.
We started by discussing the requirements on QKD devices from a network operator’s perspective. This reflects the principle idea of the project to build a QKD device that can be commercially viable.
After some introductory words from the European Commission, the day continued with the aspect of security. Today’s QKD systems are secure because a physicist or a company claims security. However, in SEQRET, we aim for making QKD ready for certification and had a guest talk from Deutsche Telekom Security GmbH.
A QKD system needs to be delivered to a customer in a secure manner. The full life cycle needs to be understood and supported. We therefore discussed these aspects and how to handle them in the project.
Finally, we got down to the technology and talked about the state of the art for the QKD system and its opportunity as a next-generation device, based on photonic integrated circuits.
The second day was filled with workshops on the different topics to get started with the actual work of the project.