Illinois researchers part of national team to receive funding for building quantum internet

A group of researchers from The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is part of a nationwide team to receive $4 million in funding for the second phase of the National Science Foundation's National Quantum Virtual Laboratory initiative. The two-year award will be used to continue the development of Attosecond Synchronized Photonic Entanglement Network (ASPEN-Net), a scalable quantum networking platform capable of distributing entanglement at high rates and over large distances, for the next two years.

ASPEN-Net is one of nine projects within the National Quantum Virtual Laboratory initiative, an effort to provide researchers anywhere in the U.S. with access to specialized resources for developing useful quantum technologies. The team of researchers will design a high-fidelity quantum networking system approximately 100,000 times faster than current quantum networks and able to carry information over distances of about 60 miles. Illinois’ researchers include physics professors Virginia Lorenz, Paul Kwiat, and Eric Chitambar. 

“I’m particularly excited because we will have the opportunity to deploy new forms of entanglement verification tests and protocols on a real quantum network," said Chitambar.  

Three separate interoperable quantum networking testbeds, located in Colorado, Illinois, and Oregon, are focusing on delivering a quantum advantage in sensing and communications applications, while providing user access to the quantum network. This builds upon work that began in 2024: in phase one, a University of Oregon-led team of researchers from Illinois, the University of New Orleans, the University of North Dakota, the University of Colorado Boulder, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, HRL Laboratories, and Boeing laid the groundwork to build a high-performance 16-node quantum networking testbed.

Illinois' involvement in ASPEN-Net continues its efforts to assist in increasing the future quantum workforce. The project itself is expected to provide equitable access to education and workforce development activities, as well as training activities for students through pre-college to graduation and beyond. 

"This project is exciting because it brings together cutting-edge science with a service mindset, creating a network capable of quantum advantage for the research community and building education and career pathways for others to join the quantum revolution," said Lorenz.   

The Illinois team’s contributions are based on their previous research:  

• Kwiat has developed an all-optical quantum memory that will be used to increase the ASPEN-Net operation rates by several orders of magnitude.  

• Chitambar has developed device-independent methods for certifying that two quantum systems are entangled and recently extended these methods to network with multiple quantum sources.  

• Lorenz has pioneered the Public Quantum Network, aimed at engaging the general public in the formation of quantum network technology. PQN was awarded the Continental Quantum City Prize for North & Central America earlier this year for bringing quantum science and technology into the public space. The network currently has a node at the Urbana Public Library, enabling visitors to interact with it.  

Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Harvard University have also joined the team for Phase Two.