Quantum Internet: Why Does it Matters?

The internet is one of the greatest technological wonders ever invented. Thanks to it we can read texts like this one, posted by random people from some random place, or even see animated pictures of kittens running after a laser pointer. The Internet has brought people together in recent years, allowed access to content and information quickly and cheaply, and I can say with conviction that when it was invented most of the applications it brings today were not even possible to think of at its inception. However, they do exist today.

And the reason I am writing this is that we are witnessing the birth of another internet, completely different from the one we know, but also with great potential. A quantum internet, based on quantum information.

The main applications of this new internet is to ensure the exchange of encryption keys in a secure way, to enable the scalability of quantum computers, to enable blind quantum computing in cloud, and to enable the making of new kinds of sensors and the synchronization of atomic clocks. However, I believe that just like the internet we use today, the quantum internet may gain more applications in the future. Applications that we can't even imagine today.

The distribution of encryption keys can usher in a new era of digital security, making the Internet as we know it more secure and making it possible to detect an attempted hack in real time.

For quantum computing, one of the biggest problems is the difficulty of increasing the size of the hardware. However, connecting spatially separated quantum computers could solve this problem, or at least reduce it.

Blind quantum cloud computing can allow sensitive data to be processed on quantum computers maintained by outside companies without them being able to access such information.

Quantum sensors can enable higher resolution in measurements and the synchronization of atomic clocks can enable the enhancement of global positioning systems, such as GPS, or radio telescopes that make space observations.

In this way, the quantum internet may bring new technologies and improve technologies that we already have today, but I have no doubt that many applications will be discovered by users when it emerges.