The first Australian quantum communication forum was held last Thursday, 21st of April at the Science dome of the Australian Academy of science.
It was a great opportunity to gather some of the most influential Australian Scientists working on quantum communication, together with some overseas scientific leader.
The Italian Embassy in Canberra proudly supported the participation to the forum of University of Trieste Prof. Angelo Bassi, a recognized world-wide leader in quantum physics.
During the event, prof. Bassi illustrated the European road map toward a quantum communication network that would provide an unbreakable secure communication throughout the whole continent, with Italy as one of the topmost leader in the field. Indeed, quantum communication, thanks to the peculiar properties of quantum mechanics, would allow establishing a communication protocol between to parties that cannot be broken by any means.
The forum allowed to established interesting contacts with the main Australian actors in the field, including CSIRO, ANU, UWA and ASA.
The conversation touched several point, ranging from basic science to commercial applications, such as the secure control of self-driven vehicles on our roads as well as in the mining system, over the oceans or up to the moon.
And, hopefully, one of the first steps could the demonstration of the transfer of a quantum encrypted message from Europe to Australia, following what Marconi, who’s 150th anniversary will be celebrated this year, did in 1930 by switching on 3000 lamps in the town hall of Sydney with a radio signal sent from his yacht, the Elettra, moored in front of the port of Genoa.
The following day we had the opportunity to visit Quantum Brilliance an Australian start-up founded in 2019 that has so far totalled 27.7M-USD in investments and that aims at creating portable quantum computers within the next decade. Quantum Brilliance currently employs 90 people, more than a third of whom are in Europe, and is very interested in extending its collaborations overseas. If QB’s project were to prove successful, it could represent one of the biggest unicorns of all time, revolutionizing the microchip market, which is among the most important, but also among the most traditional ones.
