These entanglement-based distributed keys can be used to dramatically improve the security of communications. A first important demonstration along these lines was from the Zeilinger group, which conducted a bank wire transfer in Vienna, Austria, in 2004. In this case, the two halves of the QKD system were located at the headquarters of a large bank and the Vienna City Hall. The optical fibers that carried the photons were installed in the Vienna sewer system and spanned nine-tenths of a mile (1.45 km).

Today, there are a handful of companies that have commercialized quantum key distribution technology, including my group’s collaborator Qubitekk, which focuses on an entanglement-based approach to QKD. With a more recent commercial Qubitekk system, my colleagues and I demonstrated secure smart grid communications in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Quantum communications, computing and sensing technologies are of great interest to the military and intelligence communities. Quantum entanglement also promises to boost medical imaging through optical sensing and high-resolution radio frequency detection, which could also improve GPS positioning. There’s even a company gearing up to offer entanglement-as-a-service by providing customers with network access to entangled qubits for secure communications.

There are many other quantum applications that have been proposed and have yet to be invented that will be enabled by future entangled quantum networks. Quantum computers will perhaps have the most direct impact on society by enabling direct simulation of problems that do not scale well on conventional digital computers. In general, quantum computers produce complex entangled networks when they are operating. These computers could have huge impacts on society, ranging from reducing energy consumption to developing personally tailored medicine.

Finally, entangled quantum sensor networks promise the capability to measure theorized phenomena, such as dark matter, that cannot be seen with today’s conventional technology. The strangeness of quantum mechanics, elucidated through decades of fundamental experimental and theoretical work, has given rise to a new burgeoning global quantum industry.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Nicholas Peters, University of Tennessee. If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

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Nicholas Peters receives funding from The United States Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science Advanced Scientific Computing Research program and DOE's Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response. He is affiliated with Oak Ridge National Laboratory.