NARWHAL · A Quantum System on Chip for equal access to secure communications: a pilot-ready photonic integrated circuit with embedded quantum key distribution functions for high-performance transceivers.

Quantum computing, forecasted to happen within 10 years, will bring unprecedented computing power, rendering obsolete current data security protocols based on public keys, affecting our open society, our business and basic individual rights. Quantum key distribution (QKD) technology can solve this strategic data security problem by providing information-theoretic security, making systems unbreakable even with unlimited computing power. However, until now, technology development for QKD has been focused on government and defence applications, with solutions made of discrete components in big boxes only a few can afford. With equal access to secure communications at stake, what is missing is a solution fit for mass-market industrialization to embed QKD technology in the fixed and mobile networks we rely on every day. PhotonIP offers such a solution: a quantum ready, high-performance, dual polarization 100G miniaturized engine on a single chip, Quantum System on Chip (QSoC), compatible with the smallest form factors for pluggable transceivers deployed in access networks and using the same wavelength channel for classic and quantum operations. The project aims to develop a technology demonstrator of a QSoC that is ready for pilot production and offers breakthrough performance at low cost and full compatibility with current and future optical communications infrastructure. This proposal builds on the UniQorn FET project on Quantum Technologies (GA820474), where PhotonIP's founders developed a differential phase shift transmitter on a photonic integrated circuit fit for secure quantum key distribution and leverage PhotonIP proprietary and patented Hip_ technology, a high-performance integration platform that allows a unique hybridization of the Photonics Integrated Circuit (PIC), which integrates best-in-class best in class InP based materials for all active functionality with best-in-class Silicon on Insulator for the optical passive functionality on-chip.