Paolo Comi, Nadia Fabrizio: Quantum Secured Blockchain

We are going to present the result of this project. That was a project from the European Institute of technology, 80 digital called act, where we have studied possible application of quantum key distribution technologies in a financial sector and in particular to secure blockchain in the cryptocurrency and the centralized fee finances scenarios. And so co secure will provide it's a project that has the aim to provide a market ready solution for this kind of technology that is called quantum key distribution.

That is a technology for a distribution of cryptographic key over a fiber optic networks based on quantum technologies. And in this project, we've, we have not only started the, the solution, the solution itself, but also possible use cases and scenarios in particular related to blockchain to, to, in order to improve the, also the, the, the ability of the, of Tel to, to put on the market, this solution, because in Europe, it's a very emerg, it it's emergent just right now. And so I left the stage to P which is the coordinator of the project. Thank you. Yeah.

This is the context in which we are working. Q secure net is a collaborative research and innovation activity supported by EIT digital. That is a body of the European union in this activity. It'll tell as the coordinator and the business champion with the goal to provide end to end solution for quantum secure network, the team is composed by technology providers, integrator providers and quantum secure services developers regarding the basic technology. It is provided by Polytechnical Milan and C.

That is Italian research center regard the integration in the auto product telephonic as the goal to provide a, a real network in with business traffic and UPM Polytech supports the activity of integration with the SDN technology. Finally, Sheffield has developed transactional business to business service using the blockchain technology and increasing the security and effectiveness. We just submit cares provided by the Q KD. Okay. Next slide please. Okay. And few words about quantum distribution, very, very simple way. QK D is a way for distributing a encryption here between Alice and Bob.

What is special? The fact that there's transmission is absolutely secure because it uses the quantum mechanic mechanics as the physical layer.

Indeed, the channel that is used is the optical fiber. And over this channel with the characteristics of the quantum physics, it is possible to deliver a stream of piece. In other terms, the encryption key between Alexei Bob with a 100% security that nobody in the middle can intercept the key. And if you have the key you can use, you can use it for encrypting and encrypting the message that is transmitter over the unsecure internet channel.

Next slide for this market, our initial analysis brought to the identification of opportunities for both team infrastructure and the development of secure services. The first opportunity is for the optical network service providers and in general, for everybody that owns physical infrastructure based on optical fibers.

And on this basis, they can provide an environment and tool kit for developing secure services, for instance, for the finance defense public administration, but also could be interesting for cloud providers when they have to synchronize their data in a secure way between two different size or also to make data secure using encryption keys. Next slide. Okay. The market competition is currently composed by many actors for, from Easter Asian, for instance, from Korea, Japan in China, that are the most representative players in terms of technology and also with products.

The key characteristic of Q Q secure net is that it is completely made in Europe. And it is from my point of view relevant because it, it is about a deep security of communication for the European member states.

No, no. Can you go back please back again? Okay. Thank you.

The, the market, the global market of QK D is expected to grow in the coming years and Q K D. It is recognize to be strategic for the design of new network computation in several two domain, such as defense transporter, and telecommunication, for instance, for 5g or six G. Why? Because the infrastructure is able to mitigate cyber risk, even in with the presence of quantum computers next place. Okay.

In this slide, it is represented the overall architecture in a very schematic way, just to highlight that the functionality is provided by two elements, quantum transmitter, and a quantum receiver that I, that are located at physical level in the Q KD network that is integrated inside of the optical production network at the metropolitan network used by normal business communication. The key details generated and distributed in this way has then delivered to the upper layer to the application level.

And in our case, we are going to present an application using blockchain technology, but of course, any other possible application business application can be implemented on top of this technology. The first version of the product is name QSN one, meaning delivery of the key. It can provide a service that we can identify as a Q KD as a service where the Q KD elements are inside of the network of the service providers. And the key is delivered to the applications that can be used for secure communication or for encrypting data or other secured services.

The product, the first version of the product will be available by the end of this ER, and it has a several interesting features that are represented here, but I would like to bring your attention to the fact that first of all, it is a product meant to be integrated in the current business network. Indeed it uses the same channels used for business communication, and it is also can be also integrated in a very flexible way. Thanks to the interaction with the SDN architect. This is the last slider of my part of the presentation.

And, and I'm pleased to leave the floor back to Nadia for the analysis. And this description of our blockchain can take benefits from having Yes, in, in a, in FinTech today, there is a lot of discussion about securities cryptocurrency in what is called decentralized finance. So that is a word of startup that are providing this kind of solution. And we have at also the, the BCE in, in Europe starting announcing to study the centralized finance also for government scopes.

So in, in this context, even though the blockchain in itself is considered a secure technology, there are a lot of issues related to security when it comes to interoperability to exchange of information between one blockchain and another and so on. So in general, the, the exchange Mayo call or with central exchanges that are all the security issues that we know over the internet, and also Mayo call with particular, a particular approach that is called decentralized exchange. That is a way with which different blockchain can exchange their information.

For instance, can do an exchange from one cryptocurrency to another, but they have in these exchanges, they, they are occurring some exchanges of information that if the course simply over the internet are not secure. And if we think scenarios involving banking involve with financial actors, Q capacity may have role in future. So looking for site, we have decided to start starting this kind of scenario over the KU within the project. And in particular, we have demonstrated that Atomics work may over a CU for the tric exchange of a time blocks.

It is a very technical, very technical aspect, but it opens them the way to a lot of scenarios that are really business. So the atomic swap make the D the DS, the centralize exchange a lot more secure as power was telling. This is only an example because Q have a lot of potentiality to make secure services in the financial sector, not only in the blockchain, but this was particularly challenge.

And since the project was a research project, we decided to, to do this demonstration because in, it was also impacting the study of the middle, where in order to, to, to design a more modular and, and a stronger middle where the application of our scenario is the interability of different blockchain in financial scenarios, but can also be the interoperability of blockchains. In other scenarios like telco, we had telephonic in the project and we had a lot of discussion also about possible use of Q for tric exchange of information in the blockchains.

So I think that now we have more or less, we have more or less a product that is 100% EU made that it was not that, that it was not existing before and secondary, that that is even capable to demonstrate, to have some specific application for securing services in finance, but not only I have concluded my talk I'm Nadia. It is P and we are ready for questions or for an interaction with the audience. Thank you so much.