MSIT Pushes to Speed Up Commercialization of Quantum Communications, Aiming to Build 3 Hubs
TECHWORLD ·
✦ AI Summary
The government launched the Open Quantum Testbed Advancement and Expansion Project to speed up the commercialization of quantum communications.
The project will be pursued for three years from 2026 to 2028, divided into commercial hubs, overseas hubs and future hubs.
This year's budget totals KRW 7.4 billion, with the commercial hubs expanding to Daegu, Gwangju, Busan and the Gangwon region, while the overseas hub is linked with Singapore, Poland and Bulgaria.
The government is pushing to expand domestic and overseas demonstration bases to commercialize quantum communications technology. To accelerate commercialization, it has launched a project to broaden demonstration infrastructure and is pushing to expand domestic quantum communication test networks and link them with overseas testbeds. The Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Information Society Agency (NIA) held a kickoff briefing for the 'Open Quantum Testbed Advancement and Expansion Project' on the 21st at the Pangyo Business Support Hub.
The open quantum testbed is a demonstration space for companies and research institutes to jointly use quantum cryptography communication test networks and expensive measurement equipment. It targets infrastructure that is difficult to build on its own. The government is pushing ahead with the project to expand opportunities to demonstrate quantum communication technologies and products and strengthen the basis for commercialization.
The government plans to advance and expand the open quantum testbed so that companies and research institutes can use shared infrastructure for three years from 2026 to 2028. The budget for this year totals KRW 7.4 billion. The funding consists of KRW 3.75 billion in government contributions and KRW 3.65 billion in private-sector contributions.
The project seeks to expand existing demonstration bases, with the classification standard based on technological maturity and usage purpose, and the categories divided into commercial hubs, overseas hubs and future hubs. After a call for applications in May, the ministry carried out a selection review, and as a result, a consortium led by KT was selected as the operator for the commercial and future hubs, while a consortium led by SK Broadband was selected as the operator for the overseas hub.
The commercial hub plans to expand the existing test network to Daegu this year, then to Gwangju and Busan in 2027, and to the Gangwon region in 2028. The hub will focus on applying quantum cryptography communication to data transmission in the research, medical and financial sectors, while also verifying interoperability among domestically produced equipment from different manufacturers.
The overseas hub will pursue national-level quantum security demonstrations by linking with quantum testbeds in Singapore, Poland and Bulgaria. QKD will be applied in domestic and overseas local segments, and PQC will be applied in long-distance international segments, with research data transmission and UAM data protection as demonstration targets. Through this, the government plans to verify the potential for domestic technologies and equipment to be deployed overseas.
The future hub is a demonstration environment for next-generation quantum communication technologies, with goals of establishing a long-distance wireless quantum cryptography communication demonstration environment and building a multi-point quantum entanglement distribution demonstration environment. Based on this, it is expected to support the development and verification of core technologies needed to realize future quantum networks.
At the kickoff briefing, the government shared the construction plans and demonstration plans for each hub and presented use cases for the testbed. It then gathered field feedback through a meeting with companies and discussed ways to expand testbed use and support companies.
Yoon Kyung-sook, director-general for basic and foundational research policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, said that to accelerate the commercialization of quantum technology, it is important to expand demonstration bases where companies can verify technologies and products in various environments. She added that the government will push ahead with expanding domestic testbeds and linking them with overseas sites to broaden demonstration opportunities for companies and strengthen testing, verification and technology support tailored to field demand.
Source: TECHWORLD · Kim Hye-jin
Original: https://www.epnc.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=408551
References
This article was produced with the help of an automated content generation algorithm.
Source: TECHWORLD
View originalThis article was summarized and organized by BizCrush based on the original article from TECHWORLD. For exact quotations and full details, please refer to the original article.