New Delhi, August 2022: India is all set to  harness indigenous Quantum Communication technology to equip its Armed Forces with high end Defence systems.
Under the aegis of Innovation for Defence Excellence (iDEX) – Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO),  a Bangalore -based Deep Tech Start-up, the QNu Labs,  has broken distance barriers by innovating advanced secured communication through Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) systems.
The project was curated by iDEX-DIO with Indian Army. After the successful trials, the Indian Army has initiated the process of procurement of QKD systems developed by QNu Labs by issuing commercial Request For Proposal (RFP) and its deployment.
A QKD system allows creation of a quantum secure secret pair of symmetric keys between two end points, separated by certain distance (in this case, over 150 Kms) in terrestrial optical fiber infrastructure. The QKD helps create a non-hackable quantum channel for creating un-hackable encryption keys which are used to encrypt critical data/voice/video, across the end points.
Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar  has termed the development of indigenously QKD technology as a milestone achievement a befitting success story of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ ( self reliant India). The Defence Secretary also applauded the efforts of the Department of Defence Production, Ministry of Defence, iDEX-DIO, Army Design Bureau and the Indian Army Signals Directorate, which have contributed in development of high end Quantum Technology in the country for the first time.
QNu Labs’ co-founder and CEO Shri Sunil Gupta stated that the vision of putting India on the forefront of deep technologies in the field of data security through the use of Quantum technology has finally borne fruits. He added that winning the Open Challenge-2 of iDEX has provided a launching pad to QNu Labs to achieve this stellar success. Source