Applications and Use Cases for the Quantum Internet
draft-wang-qirg-quantum-internet-use-cases-00
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draft-wang-qirg-quantum-internet-use-cases-00
QIRG C. Wang
Internet-Draft A. Rahman
Intended status: Informational InterDigital Communications, LLC
Expires: July 18, 2020 January 15, 2020
Applications and Use Cases for the Quantum Internet
draft-wang-qirg-quantum-internet-use-cases-00
Abstract
The Quantum Internet has the potential to improve Internet protocol
and application functionality by incorporating quantum information
technology into the infrastructure of the overall Internet. In this
document, we provide an overview of some applications expected to be
used on the Quantum Internet, and then categorize them using the
standard telecommunications classification of control plane versus
data plane functionality. We then provide detailed use cases for
selected applications which can help steer the development of the
requisite Quantum Internet functionality.
Status of This Memo
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to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
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described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Conventions used in this document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Terms and Acronyms List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Overview of Quantum Internet Applications . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Selected Quantum Internet Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5.1. Secure Communication Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.2. Distributed Quantum Computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5.3. Secure Quantum Computing with Privacy Preservation . . . 9
6. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
9. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
10. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1. Introduction
The classical Internet has been constantly growing since it first
became commercially popular in the early 1990's. It essentially
consists of a large number of end-nodes (e.g., laptops, smart phones,
network servers) connected by routers. The end-nodes run
applications that provide some value added service for the end-users
such as processing and transmission of voice, video or data. The
physical connections between the various nodes in the Internet
include Digital Subscriber Lines (DSLs), fiber optics, etc. Bits are
transmitted across the classical Internet in packets.
Research and experimentation have picked up over the last few years
for developing a Quantum Internet [Wehner]. It is anticipated that
the Quantum Internet will provide intrinsic benefits such as better
end-user and network security. The Quantum Internet will have end-
nodes, which must be quantum computers, connected by quantum
repeaters/routers. These quantum computer end-nodes will also run
value-added applications which will be discussed later. The physical
connections between the various nodes in the Quantum Internet are
expected to be primarily fiber optics and free-space optics. Unlike
the classical Internet, qubits (and not classical bits or packets)
are expected to be transmitted across the Quantum Internet due to the
underlying physics [I-D.irtf-qirg-principles].
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The Quantum Internet is not anticipated to replace the classical
Internet. Instead the Quantum Internet will be integrated into the
classical Internet to form a new hybrid Internet. The process of
integrating the Quantum Internet with the classical Internet is
similar to, but with more profound implications, as the process of
introducing any new communication and networking paradigm into the
existing Internet.
2. Conventions used in this document
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
3. Terms and Acronyms List
This document assumes that the reader is familiar with the quantum
information technology related terms and concepts that are described
in [I-D.irtf-qirg-principles]. In addition, the following terms and
acronyms are defined here for clarity:
o Bit - Binary Digit (i.e., fundamental unit of information in a
classical computer).
o Classical Internet - The existing, deployed Internet (circa 2020)
where bits are transmitted in packets between nodes to convey
information.
o Control Plane - Network functions and processes that operate on
(1) control bits/packets or qubits (e.g., to setup up end-user
encryption); or (2) management bits/packets or qubits (e.g., to
configure nodes).
o Data Plane - Network functions and processes that operate on end-
user application bits/packets or qubits (e.g., voice, video,
data). Sometimes also referred to as the user plane.
o End-node - An end-node hosts user applications and interfaces with
the rest of the Internet. Typically, an end-node may serve in a
client, server, or peer-to-peer role as part of the application.
If the end-node is part of the Quantum Internet it must be a
quantum computer and be able to transmit and receive qubits. It
may optionally also interface to the classical Internet and thus
be able to transmit and receive classical bits/packets.
o Hybrid Internet - The "new" or evolved Internet to be formed due
to a merger of the classical Internet and the Quantum Internet.
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o NISQ - Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum
o Packet - Formatted unit of multiple related bits.
o Quantum Internet - A new type of network enabled by quantum
information technology where qubits are transmitted between nodes
to convey information (Note: qubits must be sent individually and
not in packets). The Quantum Internet will be merged into the
classical Internet to form a new hybrid Internet.
o QC - Quantum Computer
o QKD - Quantum Key Distribution
o Qubit - Quantum Bit (i.e., fundamental unit of information in a
quantum computer). It is similar to a classic bit in that the
state of a qubit is either "0" or "1" after it is measured and is
denoted as its basis state |0> or |1>. However, the qubit is
different than a classic bit in that the qubit is in a linear
combination of both states before it is measured and termed to be
in superposition. A photon or an electron can be used to
represent a qubit.
4. Overview of Quantum Internet Applications
The Quantum Internet is expected to be extremely beneficial for a
subset of existing and new applications. We use "applications" in
the widest sense of the word and include functionality typically
contained in Layers 4 (Transport) to Layers 7 (Application) of the
Open System Interconnect (OSI) model.
The expected applications are still being developed as we are in the
formative stages of the Quantum Internet [Castelvecchi] [Wehner].
However, a tentative (and non-exhaustive) list of the applications to
be supported on the Quantum Internet can be identified and classified
as below. From the list it is clear that a variety of control plane
and data plane applications will run on the Quantum Internet.
Control Plane Applications using Quantum Internet:
1. Secure communication setup - Refers to secure cryptographic key
distribution between two or more end-nodes. The most well-known
method is referred to as QKD [Renner].
2. Fast Byzantine negotiation - Refers to a quantum network based
method for fast agreement in Byzantine negotiations [Fitzi].
This can be used for the popular financial blockchain feature as
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well as other distributed computing features which use Byzantine
negotiations.
3. Network clock synchronization - Refers to a world wide set of
atomic clocks connected by the Quantum Internet to achieve an
ultra precise clock signal [Komar].
4. Position verification - Refers to a method for an end-node to
prove that it is at a particular location to, for example, access
a specific service [Unruh].
Data Plane Applications using Quantum Internet:
1. Distributed quantum computing - Refers to a collection of remote
small capacity quantum computers (i.e., each supporting a few
qubits) that are connected and working together in a coordinated
fashion so as to simulate a virtual large capacity quantum
computer [VanMeter].
2. Secure quantum computing with privacy preservation - Refers to
private, or blind, quantum computation, which provides a way for
a client to delegate a computation task to one or more remote
quantum computers without disclosing the source data to be
computed over [Fitzsimons].
It is also important to understand which applications will not be
supported on the Quantum Internet. Many existing applications have
no clear advantage if transmitted over the Quantum Internet and so
are not expected to be migrated there. Key examples are Voice over
IP (VoIP) calls, streaming video sessions, and web browsing sessions.
These applications usually have a real-time human end-user and/or
involve high bandwidth content transmission. These applications are
better suited to remain on the classical Internet.
A given end-node may need to support both a classical Internet
interface and a Quantum Internet interface as will be illustrated in
some of the use cases below.
5. Selected Quantum Internet Use Cases
The Quantum Internet will support a variety of applications and
deployment configurations. This section details a few key use cases.
In system engineering, a use case is typically made up of a set of
possible sequences of interactions between nodes and users in a
particular environment and related to a particular goal. This will
be the definition that we use in this section.
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5.1. Secure Communication Setup
In this scenario, two banks (i.e., Bank #1 and Bank #2) need to have
secure communications for transmitting important financial
transaction records (see Figure 1). For this purpose, they first
need to securely exchange a classic secret cryptographic key (i.e., a
sequence of classical bits), which is triggered by an end-user banker
at Bank #1. This results in a source quantum node A at Bank #1 to
securely send a classic secret key to a destination quantum node B at
Bank #2. This is referred to as a secure communication setup.
One requirement for this secure communication setup process is that
it should not be vulnerable to any classic or quantum computing
attack. This can be realized using QKD [ETSI-QKD]. QKD can securely
distribute a secret key between two quantum nodes, without physically
transmitting it through the network and thus achieving the required
security. QKD is the most mature feature of the quantum information
technology, and has been commercially deployed in small-scale and
short-distance deployments.
In general, QKD (e.g., [BB84]) without using entanglement works as
follows:
1. The source quantum node A transforms the secret key to qubits.
Basically, for each classical bit in the secret key, the source
quantum node A randomly selects one quantum computational basis
and uses it to prepare/generate a qubit for the classical bit.
2. The source quantum node A sends qubits to the destination quantum
node B via quantum channel.
3. The destination quantum node receives qubits and measures them
based on its random quantum basis.
4. The destination quantum node sends the measurement results (i.e.,
classic bits) to the source quantum node via any public classic
channel.
5. Both the source node and the destination node inform each other's
random quantum basis.
6. Both nodes discard any measurement bit under different quantum
basis and store all remaining bits as the secret key.
Note that there are some entanglement-based QKD protocols such as
[Treiber], which work differently than above steps. In addition, For
large-scale QKD, one or multiple trusted QKD relays [Zhang] may exist
between the source quantum node A and the destination quantum node B.
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As a result, the Quantum Internet in Figure 1 may contain quantum
channels, quantum repeaters/routers [I-D.irtf-qirg-principles], and/
or trusted QKD relays.
+---------------+
| End User |
|(e.g., Banking |
| Application) |
+---------------+
^
| User Interface
| (e.g., GUI)
V
+-----------------+ /--------\ +-----------------+
| |--->( Quantum )--->| |
| Source | ( Internet ) | Destination |
| Quantum | \--------/ | Quantum |
| Node A | | Node B |
| (e.g., Bank #1) | /--------\ | (e.g., Bank #2) |
| | ( Classical) | |
| |<-->( Internet )<-->| |
+-----------------+ \--------/ +-----------------+
Figure 1: Secure Communication Setup
5.2. Distributed Quantum Computing
In this scenario, Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) computers
distributed in different locations are available for sharing.
According to the definition in [Preskill], a NISQ computer can only
realize a small number of qubits and has limited quantum error
correction. In order to gain higher computation power before fully-
fledged quantum computers become available, NISQ computers can be
connected via classic and quantum channels.
As an example, scientists can leverage these connected NISQ computer
to solve highly complex scientific computation problems such as
analysis of chemical interactions for medical drug development (see
Figure 2). In this case, qubits will be transmitted among connected
quantum computers via quantum channels, while classic control
messages will be transmitted among them via classic channels for
coordination and control purpose . Qubits from one NISQ computer to
another NISQ computer are very sensitive and cannot be lost. For
this purpose, quantum teleportation can be leveraged to teleport
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sensitive data qubits from one quantum computer A to another quantum
computer B.
Specifically, the following steps happen between A and B:
1. The quantum computer A locally generates some sensitive data
qubits to be teleported to the quantum computer B.
2. The quantum computer A first establishes a shared entanglement
with the quantum computer B (i.e., there are two entangled
bits: |q1> at A and |q2> at B).
3. Then, the quantum computer A performs a Bell measurement of the
entangled qubit |q1> and the sensitive data qubit.
4. The result from this Bell measurement will be encoded in two
classic bits, which will be physically transmitted via a classic
channel to the quantum computer B.
5. Based on the received two classic bits, the quantum computer B
modifies the state of the entangled qubit |q2> in the way to
generate a new qubit identical to the sensitive data qubit at the
quantum computer A.
In Figure 2, the Quantum Internet contains quantum channels and
quantum repeaters/routers [I-D.irtf-qirg-principles].
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+-----------------+
| End-User |
|(e.g., Scientist)|
+-----------------+
^
|User Interface (e.g. GUI)
|
+------------------+-------------------+
| |
| |
V V
+----------------+ /--------\ +----------------+
| |--->( Quantum )--->| |
| | ( Internet ) | |
| Quantum | \--------/ | Quantum |
| Computer A | | Computer B |
| (e.g., Site #1)| /--------\ | (e.g., Site #2)|
| | ( Classical) | |
| |<-->( Internet )<-->| |
+----------------+ \--------/ +----------------+
Figure 2: Distributed Quantum Computing
5.3. Secure Quantum Computing with Privacy Preservation
Secure computation with privacy preservation refers to the scenario:
1. A client node with source data delegates the computation of the
source data to a remote computation node.
2. Furthermore, the client node does not want to disclose any source
data to the remote computation node and thus preserve the source
data privacy.
3. Note that there is no assumption or guarantee that the remote
computation node is a trusted entity from the source data privacy
perspective.
As an example illustrated in Figure 3, the client node could be a
virtual voice-controlled home assistant device like Amazon's Alexa
product. The remote computation node could be a quantum computer in
the cloud. A resident as an end-user uses voice to control the home
device. The home device captures voice-based commands from the end-
user. Then, the home device interfaces to a home quantum terminal
node (e.g., a home gateway), which interacts with the remote
computation node to perform computation over the captured voice-based
commands.
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In this particular case, there is no privacy concern since the source
data (i.e., captured voice-based commands) will not be sent to the
remote computation node which could be compromised. Protocols
[Fitzsimons] for delegated quantum computing or blind quantum
computation can be leveraged to realize secure delegated computation
and guarantee privacy preservation simultaneously. Using delegated
quantum computing protocols, the client node does not need send the
source data but qubits with some measurement instructions to the
remote computation node (e.g., a quantum computer).
After receiving qubits and measurement instructions, the remote
computation node performs the following actions:
1. It first performs certain quantum operations on received qubits
and measure them according to received measurement instructions
to generate computation results (in classic bits).
2. Then it sends the computation results back to the client node via
classic channel.
3. In this process, the source data is not disclosed to the remote
computation node and the privacy is preserved.
In Figure 3, the Quantum Internet contains quantum channels and
quantum repeaters/routers [I-D.irtf-qirg-principles].
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+----------------+
| End-User |
|(e.g., Resident)|
+----------------+
^
| User Interface
| (e.g., voice commands)
V
+----------------+
| Home Device |
+----------------+
^
| Classic
| Channel
V
+----------------+ /--------\ +----------------+
| |--->( Quantum )--->| |
| Quantum | ( Internet ) | Remote |
| Terminal | \--------/ | Computation |
| Node | | Node |
| (e.g., Home | /--------\ | (e.g., QC |
| Gateway) | ( Classical) | in Cloud) |
| |<-->( Internet )<-->| |
+----------------+ \--------/ +----------------+
Figure 3: Secure Computation with Privacy Preservation
6. Conclusion
This document provides an overview of some expected applications for
the Quantum Internet and details selected use cases. One key take
away is that a variety of control plane applications will run on the
Quantum Internet. In contrast, the data plane applications running
on the Quantum Internet will be focused on supporting different forms
of remote quantum computing. This set of applications may, of
course, naturally expand over time as the Quantum Internet matures.
This document can also serve as an introductory text to persons
interested in learning about the practical uses of the Quantum
Internet. Finally, it is hoped that this document will help guide
further research and development of the specific Quantum Internet
functionality required to implement the applications and uses cases
described herein.
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7. IANA Considerations
This document requests no IANA actions.
8. Security Considerations
This document does not define an architecture nor a specific protocol
for the Quantum Internet. It focuses on detailing use cases and
describing typical Quantum Internet applications. However, some
useful observations can be made regarding security as follows.
It has been clearly identified that once large-scale quantum
computing becomes reality it will be able to theoretically break many
of the public-key (i.e., asymmetric) cryptosystems currently in use
because of the exponential increase of computing power with quantum
computing. This would negatively affect many of the security
mechanisms currently in use on the classic Internet. This has given
strong impetus for starting development of new cryptographic systems
that are secure against quantum computing attacks [NISTIR8240].
Paradoxically, development of a Quantum Internet will also mitigate
the threats posed by quantum computing attacks against public-key
cryptosystems. Specifically, the secure communication setup feature
of the Quantum Internet as described in Section 5.1 will be strongly
resistant to both classical and quantum computing attacks.
Finally, Section 5.3 provides a method to perform remote quantum
computing while preserving the privacy of the source data.
9. Acknowledgments
The authors want to thank Xavier de Foy for his very useful review
and comments to the document.
10. Informative References
[BB84] Bennett, C. and G. Brassard, "Quantum Cryptography: Public
Key Distribution and Coin Tossing", 1984,
<http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/files/us-
bennetc/BB84highest.pdf>.
[Castelvecchi]
Castelvecchi, D., "The Quantum Internet has arrived (and
it hasn't)", Nature 554, 289-292, 2018,
<https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01835-3>.
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[ETSI-QKD]
ETSI GR QKD 003 V2.1.1, "Quantum Key Distribution (QKD):
Components and Internal Interfaces", 2018,
<https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_gr/
QKD/001_099/003/02.01.01_60/gr_QKD003v020101p.pdf>.
[Fitzi] Fitzi, M. and et. al., "A Quantum Solution to the
Byzantine Agreement Problem", 2001,
<https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0107127.pdf>.
[Fitzsimons]
Fitzsimons, J., "Private Quantum Computation: An
Introduction to Blind Quantum Computing and Related
Protocols", 2017,
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41534-017-0025-3.pdf>.
[I-D.dahlberg-ll-quantum]
Dahlberg, A., Skrzypczyk, M., and S. Wehner, "The Link
Layer service in a Quantum Internet", draft-dahlberg-ll-
quantum-03 (work in progress), October 2019.
[I-D.irtf-qirg-principles]
Kozlowski, W., Wehner, S., Meter, R., and B. Rijsman,
"Architectural Principles for a Quantum Internet", draft-
irtf-qirg-principles-02 (work in progress), November 2019.
[I-D.van-meter-qirg-quantum-connection-setup]
Meter, R. and T. Matsuo, "Connection Setup in a Quantum
Network", draft-van-meter-qirg-quantum-connection-setup-01
(work in progress), September 2019.
[Komar] Komar, P. and et. al., "A Quantum Network of Clocks",
2013, <https://arxiv.org/pdf/1310.6045.pdf>.
[NISTIR8240]
Alagic, G. and et. al., "Status Report on the First Round
of the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization
Process", NISTIR 8240, 2019,
<https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ir/2019/
NIST.IR.8240.pdf>.
[Preskill]
Preskill, J., "Quantum Computing in the NISQ Era and
Beyond", 2018, <https://arxiv.org/pdf/1801.00862>.
[Renner] Renner, R., "Security of Quantum Key Distribution", 2006,
<https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0512258.pdf>.
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[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[Treiber] Treiber, A. and et. al., "A Fully Automated Entanglement-
based Quantum Cyptography System for Telecom Fiber
Networks", New Journal of Physics, 11, 045013, 2009,
<https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.26.024260>.
[Unruh] Unruh, D., "Quantum Position Verification in the Random
Oracle Model", 2014, <https://link.springer.com/content/
pdf/10.1007/978-3-662-44381-1_1.pdf>.
[VanMeter]
Van Meter, R. and S. Devitt, "Quantum internet: A vision
for the road ahead", IEEE 49, 2016,
<http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6412/
eaam9288.full>.
[Wehner] Wehner, S., Elkouss, D., and R. Hanson, "Quantum internet:
A vision for the road ahead", Science 362, 2018,
<http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6412/
eaam9288.full>.
[Zhang] Zhang, Q., Hu, F., Chen, Y., Peng, C., and J. Pan, "Large
Scale Quantum Key Distribution: Challenges and Solutions",
Optical Express, OSA, 2018,
<https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.26.024260>.
Authors' Addresses
Chonggang Wang
InterDigital Communications, LLC
1001 E Hector St
Conshohocken 19428
USA
Email: Chonggang.Wang@InterDigital.com
Akbar Rahman
InterDigital Communications, LLC
1000 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal H3A 3G4
Canada
Email: rahmansakbar@yahoo.com
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