Quantum networking firm Qunnect attracted the first four tenants to its New Mexico-based ABQ-Net open-access quantum network where they will be able to access a live quantum testing environment.

Infleqtion, Aliro Quantum, Tensora, and Bandelier Technologies signed up for access to the network, providing those quantum companies with access to a “live quantum testing environment” to help develop and validate “next-generation security technologies.”

The ABQ-Net facility went live earlier this year, backed by the New Mexico Technology and Innovation Office and part of the state’s more than $450 million in investments targeted at funding quantum-focused startups and funding from Roadrunner Venture Studios.

"ABQ-Net is the connective tissue for New Mexico's quantum ecosystem, connecting our national laboratories, colleges and universities, and technology companies," New Mexico Secretary of Economic Development Rob Black noted in a statement. "We're already seeing companies choose New Mexico because of ABQ-Net, which is exactly the kind of long-term return we hoped this investment would deliver for New Mexicans.”

The entanglement-based quantum network itself was created by Qunnect, launching with two active “anchor” nodes connected over commercial fiber, with one node located at Qunnect's downtown Albuquerque office and the other at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT), which is a Department of Energy (DOE)-funded facility operated by Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The network is positioned to connect facilities across Albuquerque including the Air Force Research Lab, University of New Mexico, and Central New Mexico Community College, and is designed to support testing of commercial quantum technologies.

Infleqtion provides neutral atom solutions for quantum computing, networking, sensing, and security. It plans to use the ABQ-Net facility to leverage atomic clocks and entangled particles to demonstrate ultra-precise and secure timing synchronization over networks.

Tensora is developing a way to monitor ground deformation, subsurface activity, and environment changes, and plans to test the use of quantum-inspired sensing technologies to detect subtle geological changes. New Mexico-based Bandelier Technologies is working to develop quantum sensing hardware and AI for defense and critical infrastructure.

Boston-based Aliro Quantum, which is backed by Cisco and Accenture, was on board for the initial network launch and provides a software platform to enterprise and government agencies to simulate, deploy, and operate entanglement-based quantum networks. Cisco earlier this month said it was testing an Aliro-powered quantum network management layer for a live entanglement-based quantum key distribution (eQKD) network.

Qunnect’s quantum progress

Cisco participated in Qunnect’s $10 million Series A funding round last year and is also part of its quantum networking work.

The ABQ-Net facility is part of Qunnect’s broader efforts in developing and operating quantum networks. The company operates its halo network in New York and is working with German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom to operate another network in Berlin.

Cisco earlier this year joined that New York effort, injecting its enterprise-grade orchestration software into that network. The trial combined Qunnect’s “room-temperature quantum hardware” with Cisco’s unified quantum networking software stack that provided automated control and synchronization across multiple network nodes.

Specifically, the system integrated Qunnect’s atom-based entanglement source with Cisco’s unified quantum networking software stack. That entanglement source was from Qunnect’s Carina platform that generated entangled photon pairs at a specific size for telecom fiber transmission and at a different size for compatibility with quantum devices.

It also used automatic polarization controllers to continuously compensate for “drift in deployed fiber,” and end nodes using room-temperature detectors and cryogenic equipment at the central hub.

“This is basically demonstrating something, which most people can only show in a laboratory, but it's something which is literally Cisco software orchestrating Qunnect hardware to perform the basic protocols which are necessary in order to support both quantum data centers and quantum networks in the future,” Qunnect CEO Noel Goddard explained to SDxCentral of the Cisco work.