And that’s a wrap! We had an incredible week at IQT New York where we presented on our latest entanglement distribution projects and hosted more than 60 friends, colleagues, and partners at our R&D facility at the Brooklyn Navy Yard for tours of our GothamQ testbed running live.

The conference, held October 24 – 26, brought together leading voices and innovators in quantum. It was an opportunity for us to showcase our evolving hardware products and engage with folks about where the industry is going. More than ever, it’s clear that hype is not a product. The only way to move the industry forward is to get hardware into the hands of users to discuss real performance specs and challenges. Here are some of our key insights from the event:

Quantum Technologies Can Be Deployed Today

It’s easy to think of quantum as a technology that will be delivered in the distant future, but the transition to a quantum-secure future is already underway, with the combined market for classical and quantum communications estimated to reach $10 billion by 2030, according to Boston Consulting Group.

Case in point: Quantum networking is already being tested over commercial-grade optical fiber infrastructure. We’re making it happen in New York and other cities around the world are committing and testing infrastructure – even undersea, between the UK and Ireland. At IQT we debuted our rack-mounted QU-SOURCE and QU-APC, both branded in our signature Qunnect hot pink color – because, as warm atom evangelists, “we like it hot!”

Collaboration Remains Critical

Based on how the classical internet developed, we know that building a global quantum internet will require a community of students, scientists, engineers, etc., contributing technologies and pushing the boundaries. It’s why we’re excited for initiatives like the Quantum Internet Alliance’s Quantum Internet Application Challenge, which encouraged ideas that harness the potential of quantum networks.

In another example, the European Commission is working with all 27 EU member states and the European Space Agency on its EuroQCI initiative, which aims to build QKD networks that will span the whole EU. Single photon detectors for telecom wavelengths are a critical component to these future networks, and Aurea Technology, Single Quantum and ID Quantique, all of whom exhibited at IQT, are improving their product offerings to meet the anticipated demand from the EU.

Bring More People into the Fold

In the same vein that collaboration among academia, the private sector, and government agencies will lead to greater adoption of quantum, we also need diverse voices to help drive these commercial innovations across the global economy. Our investor SandboxAQ recently launched an upskilling initiative with EY to address the growing demand for AI and quantum professionals. On a smaller scale, Qunnect also sponsored three New York University students majoring in STEM to attend IQT New York. The quantum industry needs to continue to invest more in training and education as we build a sustainable, inclusive ecosystem.

I was excited to see the scientific and engineering work being done to make quantum networking not only commercial, but practical. As our CSO Mehdi Namazi reminded us in his keynote talk, no one had any idea what applications the digital internet would reap in the 1970s. We are excited to be part of the solution to unlocking the potential of the next revolution in networking.