Testing the Potential of Quantum Networking

The consortium is firmly focused on building out a regional quantum network and using it for experimentation, demonstration, tech development, and capability advancement. As capabilities are matured within target performance ranges, then the focus becomes operationalizing those capabilities through integration, both within the DC-QNet testbed and within member department and agency mission-focused initiatives.

One benefit of being in the D.C. region is that we’re close to federal officials and policymakers. We can bring them into our labs for demonstrations, and they can leverage their proximity to the infrastructure to further their understanding of quantum networking and use cases. 

VER: How does that regional ecosystem support quantum technology’s development? How has this official partnership been beneficial?

Cooper: Across our members, there is a heterogeneous mix of mission capabilities, and there is a wonderful multidisciplinary group of engineers and scientists. Additionally, we’re able to leverage knowledge and infrastructure across our members, which allows us to be efficient as we pursue our objective. 

Also, each of the member organizations have robust interactions spanning academia, the private sector, national labs, and other federal entities. This helps to ensure that the consortium is able to leverage the state of the art in our work, as well as socialize member technology development accomplishments.

One item of note is the helpful role of network organizations in the quantum arena. Within these types of organizations exists a coalition that can include corporate, academic, some federally funded research and development centers, government members, and more working together to achieve regional and national goals around quantum information science.

VER: How does that dovetail with what you’re doing at NASA? What’s NASA’s role in the quantum space?

Cooper: NASA’s vision statement is “Exploring the secrets of the universe for the benefit of all,” and the mission statement is, “NASA explores the unknown in air and space, innovates for the benefit of humanity, and inspires the world through discovery.” Quantum information science can potentially further enable this vision and mission; hence, the agency is engaged in all areas of quantum information science, including quantum computing, quantum networking, and quantum sensing. Quantum is both an emerging and future strategic capability for the agency’s aeronautics, Earth and space science, and space exploration programs. Potential applications for NASA range from cosmological imaging, mapping planetary bodies and their phenomena, to communications, navigation, and much more.

As for my quantum work at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, I spearhead the center’s quantum networking portfolio, overseeing multiple activities to enable both space-based and terrestrial quantum networking via technology development and strategic initiatives with an eye toward operations. My work with DC-QNet naturally complements the activities that I lead for NASA.

VER: How do you see quantum technology changing businesses and government agencies? What use cases are especially interesting?

Cooper: I’m going to provide an expansive answer. At times, someone will ask, “What’s the advantage of quantum? What will we do in the future that we can’t do now?” I share with businesses and public sector organizations that they should imagine where they want to be in the next 30 years and then work backwards from there. Entities should work with their technologists and user community to see if items within their future vision are really pushing the envelope, divide the supporting functions and aspects of that vision to identify what’s inherently classical, and then identify what could be enabled by quantum based on what we know now while continuing to track advancements in research. 

The world is still working to fully understand the potential and promise of what it means to leverage entanglement as a resource. In the realm of quantum networking, there are clearly some early baseline applications like distributed quantum sensing, distributed quantum computing, security, and others, along with yet-to-be-discovered use case applications. In the DC-QNet consortium, we are working through a lot of the what and how for a range of quantum networking scenarios, along with gap capability identification and maturation to enable implementation and scaling for the future. 

Generally, it’s important to remember — whether you’re talking about artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantum information science, or other emerging tech — the key is for stakeholders, boards, founders, investors, and innovators (in the public or private sector) to start with a robust vision about the value they want to bring into the future. Start with that end state in mind, grounded in what makes their value proposition unique. From there, ask subject matter experts, “Is there anything within this visionary ecosystem that can or should be quantum information science-enabled?” That’s how entities can avoid rabbit holes and reduce the risk of getting out of alignment with their core mission and vision. 

Many decades ago, when individuals like Vint Cerf and others pursued networking, it would have been hard for any of them to predict where the world of networking would be in 2023. But there was that glimmer of insight that something significant would result from interconnecting powerful assets. I think the world is potentially at a similar precipice with quantum information science, and quantum networking specifically. It’s all incredibly exciting and why I love the work that I do so much.

VER: You touched on this, but when do you think these technologies are going to be widely adopted? 

Cooper: I’ve always been of the mind that every step in the discovery process is needed and useful. Even though a lot of hardware, systems, and testbeds are lab-scale right now, we’re going through a process of ideation and application seeding that we’ve seen with many other technologies. Where in the past, there may not have been the largest profit margins for a particular capability area or emerging tech, there’s a fair amount of government investment trickling into the economy that provides a means by which commercial and academia, from their lab resource perspective, can start looking at increasingly more applications and figure out how to achieve economies of scale.

I never use numbers to predict when to expect to see certain things in tech, because what I’ve learned over time is the numbers are almost always wrong. But I’ve also learned that the reality of the speed of innovation always beats my predictions. When I see all of these accelerating factors such as the nearly whole-of-government approach to quantum information science and investments, when I look at the incredible momentum of the private sector, the strategic collaborations occurring with international partners, and when I observe the scale of multi-sector coalitions of industry, academia, and the federal entities working together, plus so many different component and/or system implementations maturing, I would say we’re at the cusp of an era of accelerated integration for a number of specific quantum application areas in the United States that will benefit the American people.

VER: What are Virginia’s and the Washington area’s strengths in supporting quantum development?

Cooper: In addition to the factors I discussed before, I would add that Virginia has several universities that are engaged in meaningful research and cultivating the next generation of the quantum workforce. Virginia is also home to federal research organizations that have tremendous capabilities, facilities, and research know-how. That’s an augmenting factor for the Virginia innovation ecosystem, especially for quantum. In addition, Virginia has numerous technology companies of varying sizes, and there is a talented workforce supporting all these sectors. With Virginia hosting the 2023 Quantum World Congress, the Commonwealth is poised for even greater things.