QKD Toshiba
The First Successful Application of Quantum Key Distribution Technology in the World to Multiplex More Than 30 Tbps of Secret Keys and High-Capacity Data
Utilising the O-band to achieve three times the capacity in comparison to traditional approaches, with the goal of practical implementation in inter-data centre communications
A theoretically impenetrable multiplexing technology for quantum key distribution (QKD) has been developed by Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation and KDDI Research. Multiplexed transmission across a single optical fibre is made possible by this technology, which allocates high-volume data transmissions to the O-band and secret keys to the C-band. Additionally, it has successfully sent high-capacity data signals and secret keys at 33.4 Tbps over 80 km for the first time using this technique.
Up until now, QKD-based commercial solutions have concentrated on technology that allows data and secret keys to be sent over a single optical fibre. With this method, key transfer does not require specialised fibres. High-capacity data transmission is difficult, though, because data transmission creates noise that tampers with the secret keys. This innovative technique greatly lowers the introduction and operating expenses of deploying QKD technology by enabling higher-capacity communication through a single optical fibre than previously achievable. It is anticipated that this development will result in early real-world uses in connections between data centres and other areas.
The need for security measures to shield private data from cyberattacks is growing more and more important as data centre communications continue to expand in capacity. Toshiba Digital Solutions and KDDI Research will keep advancing research and development to provide secure and high-capacity communication services.
Background
The spread of AI and IoT in the 6G era is anticipated to result in a massive and varied data flow across networks, necessitating a further expansion of optical fibre communication’s transmission capacity in order to serve these networks. Due to the expected increase in the transmission of sensitive data like genomic information for personalised medicine and biometric data for authentication, high-capacity and secure data communication services will be needed. Cryptography based on computational difficulty protects transmitted data from cyberattacks, but quantum computers may be able to decrypt it.
Thus, secure secret key transmission (QKD) technology is growing in popularity. QKD uses quantum physics to detect eavesdropping since each attempt to eavesdrop changes the quantum state. It’s theoretically impossible to steal secret keys or decrypt data, ensuring security.
Nevertheless, QKD technology that uses weak light is vulnerable to noise produced by adjacent light wavelengths. As a result, using QKD to transmit secret keys necessitates specialised optical fibres, which presents implementation and operating cost problems. Technologies that multiplex secret keys and data streams over a single optical fibre using several wavelengths are being researched in order to address this problem. Long-distance communication and high-capacity data transfer have proven challenging to accomplish, nevertheless. Extending the distance makes the noise impact on the secret keys worse, while increasing the data transmission capacity increases the noise impact on the secret keys conveyed using the traditional QKD technology.
Additionally, KDDI Research has been creating technologies to send large amounts of data in the ultra-wideband O-band in addition to the popular C-band and L-band.
Recent Accomplishments
In this project, Toshiba Digital Solutions and KDDI Research examined and assessed how data signals sent in the O-band affected the secret keys sent in the C-band using the QKD technique. The parameters required to maximise the bandwidth and optical power for O-band transmission were determined. Consequently, high-capacity data signals were sent via the ultra-wide O-band, secret keys were successfully multiplexed, and there was little transmission loss in the C-band. This made it possible to use a single optical fibre to send the secret keys and high-capacity data signals at 33.4 Tbps across 80 km.
Compared to traditional technologies, this innovation enhanced the transmission capacity by about three times. Furthermore, as compared to traditional technology that multiplexes both secret keys and data signals in the C-band, it improved the transmission performance index by almost 2.4 times, as determined by the product of transmission capacity and distance (capacity-distance product).
What is QKD?
One of the biggest problems brought on by the quick advancement of modern information technology is maintaining data security. Secure access to sensitive data is a major worry as more and more of it is kept on distant computer servers, including those in the cloud. Information exchanged over public networks must be encrypted in order to be securely sent and retrieved.
Distribution of Quantum Keys
In order to prepare for the challenges posed by quantum computers, there is growing interest in deploying and implementing quantum key distribution in practical use cases. Toshiba’s quantum cryptography technologies contribute to the new network society’s safety and security.
Why Toshiba QKD
At Toshiba Research Europe Limited’s Cambridge Research Laboratory, Toshiba began studying quantum cryptography in 1999. Toshiba have since accomplished several noteworthy firsts in the world. In 2003, Toshiba were the first to disclose the distribution of quantum keys across 100 km of fibre. In 2010 and 2017, Toshiba were the first to achieve continuous key rates exceeding 1 Mbit/second and 10 Mbit/second, respectively.
Products
There are two variations of the QKD offering: the long-distance system for the maximum key rate and range, and the multiplexed system that may be run on data-carrying fibre.
Use Cases
Ensuring the safe transmission of critical genetic data at high speeds between two distant locations
The security of sending massive amounts of genomic sequence data has long been a worry for genome researchers. In fact, there have been instances where hard drives have been physically moved in secured security boxes, which is obviously problematic in terms of time and expense.
Ensuring the safe transmission of critical genetic data at high speeds between two distant locations
The security of sending massive amounts of genomic sequence data has long been a worry for genome researchers. In fact, there have been instances where hard drives have been physically moved in secured security boxes, which is obviously problematic in terms of time and expense.
Electronic data transmission between two locations is susceptible to interception, and even public key encryption during transmission is susceptible to “harvesting” attacks. The process by which the attacker methodically captures the data while it is in transit and decrypts it whenever they want is known as “harvesting.” The speed at which quantum computing may execute computations that will significantly cut down on the time required to decrypt data encrypted using public key encryption makes this issue much more pressing.
Toshiba Corporation and the Tohoku Medical Megabank Organisation at Tohoku University (ToMMo) undertook a trial demonstration of Toshiba’s “Quantum Key Distribution (QKD)” in response to this problem.
Safeguarding vast amounts of valuable data while it’s in transit
The following two issues were supposed to be resolved by the Toshiba Corporation vs. ToMMo trial.
First, under some circumstances, genomic data which includes DNA and genome information is legally considered personal information that can be used to identify specific individuals. It is made up of about 3.2 billion bases. More than 90 billion bases nearly 30 times that amount are obtained through high-precision analysis with the newest sequencers.
Second, the pace at which data could be encrypted and sent using the one-time pad was constrained since, at the time of the testing, the key distribution speed with quantum cryptographic communication technology was limited to about 10 Mbps.
Between August 2015 and August 2017, a two-year span. Genome data generated by the Japanese genome analysis tool “Japonica Array” at the Toshiba Life Science Analysis Centre was encrypted using a Toshiba QKD system and sent over a 7 km distance to ToMMo.
The testing tracked and confirmed the speed of communication stability during extended periods of operation as well as the effects of external factors including temperature, weather, and the state of the optical link.
High-speed quantum cryptography communications achieved in a real-world setting for the first time, with key distribution speeds above 10 Mbps
According to the first objective’s results, Toshiba and the ToMMo successfully used Toshiba QKD in August 2018 to accomplish the first-ever quantum cryptography communication with an average distribution speed of over 10 Mbps over deployed optical fibre lines.
When paired with high-speed QKD technology, the businesses’ application for data transfer via optical fibre lines showed feasible key distribution speeds even in a real-world setting.
Additionally, the companies built and ran a wireless sensor network that continuously tracks installed fibre optic lines and elucidated the connections between the performance characteristics of quantum cryptographic communications and characteristic changes in optical fibre brought on by year-round variations in temperature, precipitation, snowfall, wind speed, earthquakes, and other factors. The practical implementation of high-speed quantum cryptography communications has advanced significantly with this development.
The world’s first demonstration of using a one-time pad to transmit whole genome sequence data in real-time
The second goal was accomplished in January 2020 when Toshiba and ToMMo created a system for sequential encryption and large-scale data transmission. This was accomplished by using the one-time pad approach to transmit whole-genome sequence data in real-time.
The developed technologies use quantum cryptography with the one-time pad to send genomic analysis data generated from next-generation sequencers for communicating large-scale, highly confidential genome analysis data, rather than transmitting all the data at once. For the massive volumes of whole-genome analysis data, transmission processing delays can be minimised by sending data sequentially as it exits sequencers.
Conclusion
Real-time transmission of whole-genome sequence data using the one-time pad approach was made possible by Toshiba and ToMMo’s development of a system for sequential encryption and large-scale data transfer. For the massive volumes of whole-genome analysis data, transmission processing delays could be minimised by sending data sequentially as it exits sequencers. For example, the analysis of 24 individuals produced around 2.3 trillion bases of human genome data, which took more than 117 hours to produce. After the data analysis was finished, the data was safely sent over the data link in about three minutes and thirty seconds.
Toshiba QKD offers a dependable, secure method for sending production data from your design department to the manufacturing centre or for sending sensitive financial, personal, or medical data to offsite processing or storage.
