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RandomFactor writes:

Discover has an article up discussing ongoing work on the the coming quantum internet.

Only a few hundred or so physicists in the U.S., Europe and China really comprehend how to exploit some of the weirdest, most far-out aspects of quantum physics. In this strange arena, objects can exist in two or more states at the same time, called superpositions; they can interact with each other instantly over long distances; they can flash in and out of existence. Scientists like [Quantum researcher Eden Figueroa] want to harness that bizarre behavior and turn it into a functioning, new-age internet — one, they say, that will be ironclad for sending secure messages, impervious to hacking.

Already, Figueroa says his group has transmitted what he called "polarization states" between the Stony Brook and Brookhaven campuses using fiber infrastructure, adding up to 85 miles. Kerstin Kleese van Dam, director of Brookhaven Lab's Computational Science Initiative, says it is "one of the largest quantum networks in the world, and the longest in the United States."

Next, Figueroa hopes to teleport his quantum-based messages through the air, across Long Island Sound, to Yale University in Connecticut. Then he wants to go 50 miles east, using existing fiber-optic cables to connect with Long Island and Manhattan.

As part of the U.S. Quantum Initiative signed into law in 2018, the U.S. the Department of Energy is pumping $625 million in funding into quantum research.

[Nobody] knows how far the quantum revolution will go — certainly not Figueroa.

"Many of the things these devices will do, we are still trying to figure it out," he tells me. "At the moment, we are just trying to create technology that works. The really far reaches of what is possible are still to be discovered."

Original Submission