{"id":14193,"date":"2025-06-25T18:31:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T18:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/14193\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T18:31:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T18:31:10","slug":"qunnect-eyes-more-quantum-growth-with-funds-from-cisco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/14193\/","title":{"rendered":"Qunnect eyes more quantum growth with funds from Cisco"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><strong>Qunnect lands $10M in fresh funding from Cisco and other investors to advance real-world quantum applications<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The startup specializes in room-temperature quantum networking hardware<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Quantum has plenty of profit potential but making the tech user-friendly remains a challenge<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Quantum networking startup Qunnect is striving to push quantum out into the real world, and some fresh new cash could help speed that along.<\/p>\n<p>The company, which operates two quantum network testbeds in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fierce-network.com\/telecom\/qunnect-snags-8m-quantum-metro-network-new-york-city\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">New York<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prnewswire.com\/news-releases\/deutsche-telekom-and-qunnect-demonstrate-the-foundation-for-a-quantum-internet-in-berlin-302428588.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Berlin<\/a> (the latter in collaboration with DT), raised $10 million in new funding led by Airbus Ventures, Cisco and VC firm Quantonation.<\/p>\n<p>The money will fuel the development of new quantum network use cases across multiple sectors, Qunnect <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prnewswire.com\/news-releases\/quantum-networking-pioneer-qunnect-raises-10-million-in-oversubscribed-series-a-extension-spearheaded-by-airbus-ventures-with-participation-from-cisco-investments-302489320.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">said<\/a>, such as finance, energy infrastructure, telecom and defense.<\/p>\n<p>Cisco\u2019s contribution is \u201cextremely empowering for all of us who have been trying to build towards a vision of quantum networking being real,\u201d Qunnect CEO Noel Goddard told Fierce.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fierce-network.com\/telecom\/qunnect-snags-8m-quantum-metro-network-new-york-city\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The key behind Qunnect\u2019s hardware is that it can operate at room temperature, which he noted is a stark difference from most quantum tech that requires near absolute zero conditions. Quantum computing is primarily confined to laboratory settings, and that won\u2019t cut it for networking applications.<\/p>\n<p>Data centers today \u201cdon\u2019t have any cryogenics in them, they don\u2019t have any of this exotic support hardware to make quantum work,\u201d Goddard explained. That&#8217;s how Qunnect garnered interest from the likes of Cisco.<\/p>\n<p>Cisco&#8217;s quantum push<\/p>\n<p>Cisco is undertaking its own quantum computing foray, via its <a href=\"https:\/\/Cisco bets on Outshift incubator for AI, quantum innovation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Outshift incubation unit<\/a> and a new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ciscoinvestments.com\/from-theory-to-reality-future-quantum-networking-qunnect?hsCtaAttrib=191744263581\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">quantum research facility<\/a> in California. It recently unveiled a prototype quantum entanglement chip that, like Qunnect\u2019s tech, works at room temps and on existing fiber infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>Quantum entanglement is when a pair of photons are essentially linked no matter how far apart they are from each other. It\u2019s an important aspect of Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), which allows two parties to securely exchange encryption keys. QKD that uses entangled pairs is a \u201cprovably secure protocol,\u201d Goddard said, unlike single-photon QKD methods, which historically had security gaps and issues operating over long distances.<\/p>\n<p>The cool thing about entangled photons is they can allow you to \u201ctalk to\u201d quantum computers, sensors and other types of quantum devices.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNone of that is possible with the first generation QKD that was really meant to be more like a walkie-talkie,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>No easy path to quantum adoption<\/p>\n<p>Quantum networking moves from Cisco, Qunnect and others reflect a rising tide in potential profit. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mckinsey.com\/capabilities\/mckinsey-digital\/our-insights\/quantum-communication-growth-drivers-cybersecurity-and-quantum-computing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">McKinsey<\/a>\u00a0predicts the quantum communications market could reach $14.9 billion by 2035, driven by growing demand from both the public and private sectors.<\/p>\n<p>But preparing quantum tech for everyday use remains a pressing pain point. Especially getting hardware \u201cinto the hands of users,\u201d said Goddard.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fierce-network.com\/broadband\/were-waiting-chatgpt-moment-quantum-technology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Current quantum computers require \u201cteams of PhDs to maintain,\u201d so they\u2019re not user-friendly for the typical network engineer. The goal is to eventually make quantum hardware as compact as say, an internet router you\u2019d get from an ISP.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe already have equipment that works well\u201d but it needs to be \u201cindustry-hardened\u201d so Cisco and other companies can benefit from it, he explained.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSame with the software. You want it to be at a level where it always works, everything is turnkey, everything is low maintenance,\u201d Goddard concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Qunnect lands $10M in fresh funding from Cisco and other investors to advance real-world quantum applications The startup&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[716,14578,745,14579,4587,918,14577,158,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-14193","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-computing","8":"tag-broadband","9":"tag-cisco","10":"tag-computing","11":"tag-fierce-network-homepage","12":"tag-quantum","13":"tag-quantum-computing","14":"tag-qunnect","15":"tag-technology","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114745434895907336","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}