Cisco on Tuesday introduced a research prototype of software meant to run quantum networks the way routers and controllers already run conventional ones.
The Cisco Quantum Network Controller acts as a control plane: an application asks for entanglement between two endpoints at a given rate, fidelity and time, and the controller arranges the hardware to deliver it. Cisco calls the model "Entanglement-as-a-Service" and compares it to the way shared cloud infrastructure turned computing power into something scheduled on demand.
Why Cisco says a control layer is needed
Quantum networks today are mostly wired one link at a time, which keeps them to a handful of nodes, according to Vijoy Pandey, senior vice president and general manager of Outshift by Cisco. Linking 1,000 quantum nodes that way would take close to 500,000 dedicated links, he wrote in a company blog post.
The controller sits on a hardware abstraction layer with a standard interface for each type of device, including photon sources, switches, detectors and timing systems, so equipment from different makers can be swapped in. Cisco named Brooklyn-based Qunnect and Swabian Instruments among the vendors whose gear already works with it. Fierce Network reported that Cisco sees the approach as a way to open the field to third-party hardware suppliers.
Cisco said its software coordinated entanglement across about 11 miles (17.6 kilometers) of commercial telecom fiber in New York City in February, reaching better than 99% polarization fidelity at room temperature.