The year of Miniturisation-efforts

ECOC is primarily for optics, but as QKD and QCI have matured, a small but considerable chunk of ECOC is now dedicated to QKD and QCI

Key takeaways:

• QKD is here
available for 19″ from a plethora of vendors

• Miniturisation is in the horizon for QKD
at least 4 vendors are allocating serious efforts and funding

QKD is here
rack mountable 19″ big and beautiful.
You can reach out to a vendor or put out a call for tenders, like I did in 2023 with help from the amazing tender legal counsel Katrine.

In 2025 there are even more options as seen above

Thanks to these people at the EuroQCI – PETRUS booth, plus many more who couldn’t be there.

Miniturisation is on the way

From left to right:
Fraunhofer QR 1 QR 2
Keequant
|KETS>
Cubiq also announced an QSFP sized QKD module to be shown at ECOC 2025, but it was hidden in a closed room with no directions to it, with no photos being allowed and no specs

Both 19″ and Miniaturised still need certification and standardisation
The options for QKD are ever increasing, to have a quite wide selection now, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Minuturisation will increase quality and cost by going from hand-placed 19″ racks to machine-placed components or integrated silicon photonics.

But none of the current methods have standardisation or certifications to say “This is a real, verified QKD device”.

You can buy a QKD module, but how do you test it is actually secure?
How do you even test it is a QKD device using quantum states?

Luckily standards are on the way.
Not done, but on the way, so please join in on the standardisation effort, so all of these wonderful products can get a nice certificate.