The UK quantum technology industry is moving towards a “mission-based” approach and is targeting the development of companies that can lead on the world stage, attendees at the inaugural Mobile Network Innovation Summit, held in London on 12-14 May, heard. A key part of those missions are the development of use cases and technology in quantum communications, networking and timing, the Summit heard.
Legh-Smith at the Mobile Network Innovation Summit.
Jonathan Legh-Smith, CEO of UKQuantum said that the UK Government’s modern industrial strategy, published in 2025, “very clearly had quantum as one of its critical frontier technologies”.
“What we’re moving to now in this phase is a more mission-based approach, with five missions – each setting out an ambition that the programs are going to be geared towards delivering,” Legh-Smith said.
These five missions were in fact established by the previous government.
- The first mission is that there by 2035 there will be accessible, UK-based quantum computers capable of running 1 trillion operations and supporting applications that provide benefits well in excess of classical supercomputers across key sectors of the economy.
- The second misson was that by 2035, the UK will have deployed the world’s most advanced quantum network at scale, pioneering the future quantum internet.
- Mission three was that by 2030, every NHS Trust will benefit from quantum sensing-enabled solutions.
- A fourth mission has as its target the deployment quantum navigation systems, including clocks, on aircraft, providing non GNSS-based locations.>Finally, the strategy stated that by 2030, mobile, networked quantum sensors will have unlocked new situational awareness capabilities, exploited across critical infrastructure in the transport, telecoms, energy, and defence sectors.
As one part of that strategic commitment, in April this year the Government announced UK-registered businesses could apply for a share of up to £9.5m to support Quantum Computing and Quantum Networks projects.
Legh-Smith said that there are two key elements under way. “One is around developing components for quantum networking: so there’s an innovation program there. And the next – due to start very shortly – is around creating industrial test beds to do robust test and evaluation of these technologies. What we’re talking about is operationally relevant test beds, the kinds of things that operators recognise as being reflective of their networks, so that we really know what these technologies are doing.”
Callum Stirling, Innovate UK.
Callum Stirling, Innovation Lead for Quantum Technologies at Innovate UK, said the body has its eye on both near and longer term development, with a view to developing UK expertise as a national differentiator.
“We’re seeing it really as a kind of key infrastructure play that the UK can corner,” he said.
“We want to scale adoption by developing those use cases, developing customer fitness as we go for more long term technologies, but also scaling companies.”
“One funding call is open now, and this is a really focused at developing some component-level technologies. The next call is trying to focus on that adoption layer. Later on there will be more calls and opportunities to get involved – and we do need people from across industrial layers to engage with this and not just be led by quantum companies.”
Lisa Mitchell, CEO, KETS
Lisa Mitchell, CEO of KETS, echoed that development is moving towards deployment and scaling. KETS is developing hardware for quantum security and networking in telecommunications applications and Mitchell aid, “The technology risk is rapidly falling, and really our focus is shifting much more into adoption, integration and scaling technologies.”
She highlighted that a key aspect will be to build systems that sit within existing architecture and form factors.
“For innovation to be rolled out at scale, and for quantum security to be delivered at scale, we’re going to have to deploy it through established procurement, through established supply chains, within your existing operational model and, importantly, at price points that are acceptable for telco service business cases.”
Mitchell said that this has required innovation on photonic integrated circuits which are compatible with standard telco equipment. “They don’t need any cryogenics, nothing exotic,” she added.
One potential challenge for those developing quantum technology applications is squaring the circle between nations seeking competitive advantage and the need for standards that could enable growth and interoperability on a global scale.
Mitchell said that KETS works globally with telcos but she also acknowledged the conflict between between the need for global co-operation and the need for sovereignty driven by the geopolitical agenda.
“Certainly, we work internationally with telcos: we have equipment deployed in North America, across Europe and the UK. And we also work with collaborators, particularly on that assurance and standards piece, because these things need to go hand in hand.”
Orange’s Quantum-secure comms with Toshiba
Lee Johnson, Toshiba (left) and Frank de Jong, Orange Business (speaking).
One well-known potential impact of quantum computing development is the potential for bad actors to use the capabilities of quantum compute to crack existing cryptography on the network. One operator that has been testing and deploying quantum-secure comms is Orange Business. Frank de Jong, Program Director, Quantum Safe Networks, Orange Business, outlined the co-innovation Orange Business and Orange Innovation have carried out with its partners, including Toshiba.
Preparing for the threat of “Q day”, he said, is a bit like the reverse of the Y2K problem. “With Y2K, we knew when something might happen, but not what that something was. With Q-Day, we know what might happen, but we don’t know when.” However, with estimates of Q-Day ranging from 2029 outwards, the time to take action is now, de Jong said.
De Jong and co-presenter Lee Johnson, QKD Business Development Manager, Quantum Technology Division at Toshiba Europe, described how the operator has deployed commercial quantum-secure comms across a fibre network in the Paris area, with one commercial customer so far.
Johnson said that by working with innovation teams at Orange’s experimental network in Lannion, the company was able to test the co-existence of quantum signals with classical data signals. That proved that quantum and classical data can coexist, so then the companies deployed three QKD systems together in a chain to represent a dense metro network, with key management relaying keys across the network.
Johnson said, “What we found was that there were high key rates through the entire system. It all worked well, and the data service that was encrypted was error free.”
That innovation led to the launch in June 2025 of Orange Quantum Defender – the first commercial quantum-safe networking service in France – that combines QKD and PQC. The system uses Orange’s core network for the service delivery, with customers connecting via access fibre. The first customer has been connected and is operational.
De Jong said, “For now, we have chosen to build this on top of high speed data links or business Ethernet type of links. But in principle, this technology can, of course, be used on all kinds of other network services.”
Securing links with high quality randomness
As quantum-safe capabilities develop, Steve Takhar, CRO at Quside, a company developing random number generator technology, said that the need for high quality randomness, or entropy, will be critical.
The company is developing a quantum chipset in “consumable form factors” that could be used to provide consistent, reliable, high quality streams of that entropy to enable secure links in the communications network. Use cases include Secure Authentication, Enhanced key generation for VPNs, SD-WAN and 5G-SA networks, as well as securing IoT from the core to the edge. There are also use cases in QKD, sending encrypted keys in a quantum state, and current and future PQC.
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