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Arqit has announced it will develop a satellite-based quantum technology encryption network for the United States, Japan, Canada, Italy, Belgium and Austria. Known as the Federated Quantum System (FQS) the satellites will distribute quantum keys to data centres using a protocol called ARQ19. The FQS satellites will be assembled at the National Satellite Test Facility in Harwell near Oxford and launched by Virgin Orbit in 2023. Commercial partners include BT, Sumitomo Corporation, Northrop Grumman, Leonardo, QinetiQ Space N.V., qtlabs and Honeywell. Italy, Belgium and Austria are also partners in a European quantum communications network called EuroQCI. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/international-partners-and-government-agencies-join-arqits-federated-quantum-system-301310846.html https://spacenews.com/governments-ally-for-federated-quantum-encryption-satellite-network/

Users of the developer-version of Google Chrome (aka Chrome Canary) are able to take part in the testing of a quantum encryption protocol. When users connect to a Google site they will see the key exchange is handled by CECPQ1. This key exchange protocol that is being used is a blend of the New Hope algorithm (which is expected to be quantum safe) and ECDSA with Elliptic Curve 25519 (which provides conventional encryption as a safeguard). The experiment will run for two years and will help with the evaluation of server performance and overheads associated with implementing a Post-Quantum algorithm.

KPN is a Dutch landline and mobile telecommunications company based in The Hague, Netherlands. ID Quantique is a Swiss company that specialises in quantum-safe network encryption, secure quantum key generation and quantum key distribution solutions. KPN and ID Quantique have announced they are now using quantum encryption and have implemented end-to-end quantum key distribution (QKD) in the network between KPN’s data centres in The Hague and Rotterdam.