Quantum information technology: New ITU Focus Group to hold first meeting in China

The new ITU Focus Group on ‘Quantum Information Technologies for Networks’ will hold its first meeting in Jinan, China, 9-10 December 2019, hosted by the Jinan Institute of Quantum Technology.

The Focus Group will study the evolution of quantum information technologies in view of their foreseen applications in ICT networks.

The group is open to all interested parties.

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ITU is accelerating its preparations for the arrival of quantum information technologies – technologies based on the properties of quantum physics – recognizing that these technologies will be capable of solving problems far beyond the reach of classical information technologies.

Ongoing ITU standardization projects are addressing security and network aspects of quantum information technologies, with an initial focus on the specification of a ‘Quantum Random Number Generator’ and methods for ICT networks to integrate ‘Quantum Key Distribution’. These projects will make a fundamental contribution to secure encryption in the quantum era.

The Focus Group will take a broader view of quantum information technologies to support the coordination of ongoing and future standardization projects across a range of standards bodies.

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It will lead exploratory ‘pre-standardization’ studies to identify emerging standardization demands and anticipate demands to arise in future.

Chief among its list of priorities will be the analysis of high-potential use cases of quantum information technologies in ICT networks and the harmonization of associated terminology.

The terminology foundation to be developed by the Focus Group is expected to make a key contribution to the cohesion of different bodies’ standardization projects.

The Focus Group is co-chaired by Qiang Zhang, University of Science and Technology of China (China); Alexey Borodin, Rostelecom (Russia); and James Nagel, L3Harris Technologies (United States).