India reports 1,000 km quantum link

Quantum communication sends encryption keys as fragile quantum states, so measuring or copying them disturbs them and can reveal tampering. India said on April 8 that it has now linked that kind of secure network across 1,000 kilometers. (business-standard.com) The announcement came from the Department of Science and Technology under India’s National Quantum Mission, with Bengaluru-based QNu Labs named as the company behind the indigenous system. Business Standard reported the ministry said the 1,000-kilometer network was demonstrated in less than two years of the mission’s launch. (business-standard.com) The basic tool here is Quantum Key Distribution, which creates shared secret keys over optical fiber instead of sending ordinary passwords that can be copied without leaving traces. The Department of Science and Technology said QNu Labs had already demonstrated a Quantum Key Distribution network spanning more than 500 kilometers in late 2025 over existing optical fiber infrastructure. (dst.gov.in) That 500-kilometer trial used multiple nodes, including two “trusted nodes,” to pass keys along the route rather than pushing one uninterrupted quantum signal end to end. The Department of Science and Technology said the Indian Army’s Southern Command Signals planned the test-bed fiber network in Rajasthan and provided selective access to its fiber. (dst.gov.in) India’s government approved the National Quantum Mission on April 19, 2023, with a budget of 6,003.65 crore rupees through 2030-31. The mission’s published targets include inter-city Quantum Key Distribution over 2,000 kilometers of optical fiber and satellite-based secure quantum links over 2,000 kilometers within India. (dst.gov.in) The 1,000-kilometer claim lands as India is also building a broader “quantum-safe” policy stack for ordinary networks that will not run on quantum links. A Department of Science and Technology task-force report published in February 2026 said quantum computing poses a long-term risk to current cryptography and called for standards, testing, certification and phased migration to post-quantum cryptography. (dst.gov.in) QNu Labs has been positioning itself as a supplier for that wider transition, not just for fiber-based quantum links. The Department of Science and Technology said the company was incubated at Indian Institute of Technology Madras Research Park in 2016, launched Quantum Key Distribution in 2018, built a 150-kilometer system after winning the Innovations for Defence Excellence Open Challenge 2.0 in 2022, and delivered 25 Quantum Key Distribution systems to the Indian Navy in 2024. (dst.gov.in) Independent technical details remain limited in the public announcement, and the government statement summarized by Quantum Computing Report did not disclose the exact route, node count, or sustained field performance of the 1,000-kilometer network. That report said QNu Labs’ ARMOS platform had been validated with VIAVI Solutions on standard telecom fiber for secure key generation up to 200 kilometers per link, with 10 gigabits per second of classical data traffic on the same fiber. (quantumcomputingreport.com) So the headline is not that India now has a single 1,000-kilometer quantum beam running unbroken across the country. It is that India says it has assembled a 1,000-kilometer secure quantum communication network from domestic hardware and software, moving one of the mission’s 2030-era goals several years closer. (dst.gov.in)