Researchers have simulated the first quantum business transaction

the Quantum computersQuantum computers They threaten data security because they will be able to break today's best encryptions very quickly. It is therefore necessary to create new security systems for the quantum computing era. Researchers from Nanjing and Renmin Universities in China have created and tested a quantum protocol for online trading for the first time.

The researchers designed a small network of five quantum computers connected by optical fiber. One PC played the role of the trader, two were the customers, and two others played the role of brokers. They described their protocol in detail in an article published in the journal Advancement of science.

Proof of concept

The protocol is based on quantum digital signature (QDS) and combines quantum secret sharing with global single-use hashing. The trader creates a contract that both parties sign, and everything goes through an intermediary. The contract is 428,072 bits, which is the size of the client contract AmazonAmazon Web services, for example. The system allows the merchant and customer to sign the contract within a tenth of a second. The protocol is much faster than previous theoretical protocols and is closer to SpeedSpeed From classical computing.

However, according to Hoi Kwong Lo of the University of Toronto who contacted him the new WorldIncreasing the size of the network may pose a problem. In order for a million users to access transactions, a trillion keys would be needed. However, this is a simple proof of concept and not a final protocol, intended for use on commercial sites. ” We would like other research teams to use our work or further develop it and validate different scenariosto requestto request In some current quantum communication networks said Hua Li Yin, one of the authors of the article.