Chicago scientists test ‘unhackable’ quantum internet in basement closet

Scientists at the University of Chicago have built their quantum computer in the university basement.

According to the Washington Post, the 3-foot-wide cubby, in the bowels of a University of Chicago laboratory, contains a slim rack of hardware discreetly firing quantum particles into a fiber-optic network. The goal is to use nature’s smallest objects to share information under encryption that cannot be broken — and eventually to connect a network of quantum computers capable of herculean calculations.

The quantum computer in the closet was then connected to other quantum machines at the Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory up to 40 miles away. In tests, photons laden with information are fired through cables to the Argonne laboratory carrying encryption keys. At the other end, the data is then extracted to establish whether all the information was transferred without any changes, the Daily Mail reported. 

The researchers are struggling to get the system to work, with photons constantly changing as they pass through glass impurities in the cables. Dr. David Awschalom, a molecular engineering expert, and his team at Chicago University are currently working on a way around this. They are looking at building machines to connect at various points along the cables that could decode and recode photon particles, stretching the distance they could travel before becoming corrupted, according to the Daily Mail. 

Quantum research still has plenty of obstacles to overcome before it reaches widespread use. But banks, health-care companies and others are starting to run experiments on the quantum internet. Some industries are also tinkering with early-stage quantum computers to see whether they might eventually crack problems that current computers cannot, such as discovering new pharmaceuticals to treat intractable disease, the Washington Post reported. 

It is worth mentioning that the study of quantum physics began in the early 20th century, when scientists discovered that the universe’s tiniest objects — atoms and subatomic particles — behave in ways unlike matter in the large-scale world, such as appearing to be in multiple places at the same time.