Introduction

Quantum technologies have always been important to CSPs. It is the technology behind transistors, after all! But new technologies that make use of a more subtle feature of quantum, particle entanglement, are now making it into commercial solutions that will provide both new opportunities as well as new challenges to CSPs.

Entanglement is a phenomenon where two or more particles become linked in such a way that they share a single fate, regardless of the distance separating them, meaning that the state of one particle is intrinsically linked to the state of the others. The state of the particles is also not real until a measurement of the state is made; they exist in a kind of “fuzzy state” before that.

Many potential uses can come from this intrinsic property of particles. Two that are making it into commercial products are quantum computing and quantum key distribution.

Quantum Computing

Quantum computers use sets of entangled particles to provide a computing platform that can solve certain classes of problems that are nearly impossible to solve using traditional computing platforms. Examples are:

• cracking the RSA encryption system that everyone uses today for securing their networks (leading to what is often called “post-quantum networking”)
• finding the absolute best route for a traveling salesman who wants to visit a set of locations in the most efficient manner (and other NP-complete problems)
• simulations of quantum-based systems.

Quantum Key Distribution

When you want to send an encrypted message (either to another person’s application such as WhatsApp or to a piece of equipment as when a CSP technician or OSS needs to communicate with a piece of network equipment over the administrative port) you need to have a way of exchanging an “encryption key.” There are two major ways of doing this:

1. Using the public key encryption (RSA) scheme, where a public key that the sender uses to encrypt the message is published for all to see. The receiver uses a private key that matches that particular private key to decode the message. But being able to take the public key and back-calculate the private key is exactly the kind of thing a good quantum computer can do. This way will become outdated.
2. One sends a private key by a trusted channel to the other end, and they use that for the encryption. If somehow the trusted channel is compromised, then someone can listen in to the communication and use the compromised private key to decode it. However, if the trusted channel is a quantum key distribution system, then it is guaranteed that no one intercepted the private key. This is because the key is sent using entangled particles (in this case, photons, perhaps over an optical fiber). If a bad actor intercepts and “reads” the key during the exchange, it breaks the entanglement between the particles, which can be detected. Thus, QKD does not guarantee that the key cannot be compromised, but it absolutely guarantees that the end users can determine that it has been compromised.

What Are the CSP Opportunities?

The opportunities for CSPs are outlined in Figure 1, divided into the use of these technologies for internal operations and potential opportunities for new services.

Quantum Computing

• Internal Use: Quantum computers can be used to optimize certain aspects of internal operations, such as network planning and design and optimized paths for drive testing and dispatch traveling. This will be useful but not transformational.
• New Service Opportunities: Several CSPs, today, offer general cloud computing and even the use of specialized AI processors (GPUs) to enterprise clients. They could expand their offerings to include quantum computing. These will certainly use highly centralized architectures for the foreseeable future. This would be a good expansion for those CSPs that offer the other services.

Quantum Key Distribution

• Internal Use: In preparation for the post-quantum world, several vendors are experimenting with QKD for IT systems, including CSPs. These will be needed by all CSPs in the future for securing their own network equipment.
• New Service Opportunities: CSPs can offer QKD services to enterprises by themselves or just provide the dark fiber to a QKD service provider. I have seen several instances where QKD vendors have successfully used existing CSP fibers for QKD. This represents a good opportunity for CSPs in the future, although the market will be hampered by distance limitations for transmitting the entangled photons, at least when and if quantum repeaters can be developed.

Impact on CSPs

Without a doubt, CSPs will use quantum technologies in their own networks and their own operations. Whether they see themselves as providers of quantum computing and QKD services to enterprises remains to be seen.

Future ACG Research

ACG Research continues to follow the development and integration of new technologies, both hardware and software, into the CSP networks and operations. These include artificial intelligence and machine learning, new data center architectures, new packet/optical systems, AI/ML technologies, and the new generation of entanglement-based quantum technologies[1].