QCI-Days 2024 - Historic Architecture meets State-of-the-art Technology
Karin Mülleder | 05.03.2024
AIT Austrian Institute of Technology invited to the first national QCI Day at the House of Industry in 2024. Over three days (January 24-26, 2024), experts from science, research, and technology providers addressed the topic of quantum-secure communication, provided the latest findings on threat scenarios and risk assessments of cyberattacks in the quantum age, and presented possible applications for quantum technologies.
In his presentation entitled “QKD and PQC – a duo paving the way for secure information exchange via video conferencing”, Nikolaus Dürk (X-Net) discussed the latest findings from the FFG research project QCI-CAT, in which X-Net is participating as a research partner. QCI-CAT is the Austrian project within the European Commission's EuroQCI initiative and is funded by the European Union and the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FTE Nationalstiftung). Building on previous projects, QCI-CAT focuses on the combined use of post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) encryption and quantum key distribution (QKD), which is intended to raise video conferencing to a new level of security.
The QCI-CAT project also receives strong support from the Austrian ministries BMK (Federal Ministry for Climate Protection, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation, and Technology), BMF (Federal Ministry of Finance), and BMAW (Federal Ministry of Labor and Economy).
Because one thing is undisputed: secure communication and secure data exchange are important cornerstones of today's digital landscape, in which communication mainly takes place electronically. The aim of secure communication is to ensure that information can be exchanged confidentially between users while at the same time being protected from unauthorised access. In the public sector and in critical infrastructures, it ensures economic competitiveness and national security.
The threats to current encryption methods are manifold. Technological breakthroughs in the quantum world and the ongoing development of quantum computers play a significant role in this regard and must be considered and taken into account today.
The program will be rounded off with panel discussions featuring representatives from Austrian government agencies, experts from national and international quantum technology projects, and technology providers.
Further links: