Earlier this month, IQN Hub researchers at King’s College London delivered a well-received “Authentication for Quantum Networks” workshop. 

The workshop combined tutorial presentations, technical talks, and discussion sessions designed to encourage interaction between teams working on quantum cryptography, post-quantum cryptography, network security, hardware security, and quantum communications. 

Bringing together participants from across academia, industry, and the wider UK quantum ecosystem, the workshop combined tutorials with research and industry perspectives, creating opportunities for knowledge exchange across teams working in traditionally separate sectors.  

Discussions highlighted both the technical challenges and practical deployment considerations associated with authentication in quantum safe cryptographic protocols including Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), while also identifying several areas where closer collaboration between theorists, experimentalists, network engineers, and industry stakeholders would be beneficial.  

Several key themes emerged during discussions: 

• Authenticationremainsa critical challenge for scalable quantum networking. 
• Strong interest exists in bridging theoretical and practical approaches.
• Industry participants highlighted deployment challenges and operational requirements.
• Significant opportunities for future collaboration wereidentified.

The high level of engagement that led to these insights underscores the growing interest in authentication as a critical component of secure quantum networking.  It also highlights the increasingly important role that authentication plays in the development of future quantum networking technologies and demonstrates the value of bringing together expertise from a diverse range of research communities. 

The Authentication for Quantum Networks workshop was funded by IQN Hub and the NMES research culture fund at King’s College London and was part of the Quantum Software Lab’s Quantum Fringe programme. The organising committee members were Kit Battarbee and Mina Doosti (Quantum Software Lab, University of Edinburgh); Rutvij Bhavsar and Roger Colbeck (King’s College London), and Ayesha Khalid (Queen’s University Belfast).