On July 23, 2020, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released the report “From Long-distance Entanglement to Building a Nationwide Quantum Internet,” outlining a blueprint strategy for the development of a national quantum internet. The report was unveiled at a press conference at the University of Chicago.
The blueprint was developed from a February 2020 workshop hosted by DOE’s Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research at the SUNY Global Center in New York City. Approximately 80 participants from DOE national laboratories, universities, industry, and federal agencies including NIST, NSF, NASA, DARPA, and the Department of Defense contributed to the roadmap.
The report identified four priority research areas: providing foundational building blocks for quantum internet, integrating quantum networking devices, enabling error correction of quantum networking functions, and creating standards for quantum networking protocols. It also set out four deployment milestones: verifying secure quantum protocols over existing fiber networks, transmitting entangled information across campuses or cities, expanding networks between cities, and scaling between states using quantum repeaters.
DOE stated that its 17 national laboratories would serve as the backbone of the coming quantum internet. At the time of release, Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago had established a 52-mile quantum network testbed in the Chicago suburbs, and Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University maintained an 80-mile quantum network testbed in New York State. U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette said the initiative continued the country’s commitment to maintaining and expanding its quantum capabilities.