Alexander Dixon

We developed a genome sequence data storage system using a distributed storage system on a quantum key distribution (QKD) network and have successfully demonstrated secure storage and data reconstruction for genome sequence data. The proposed system thus has potential for use as a distributed storage system in genome analysis.

To realize highly secure communication required for sensitive personal information, quantum key distribution (QKD) was applied to a video conference system for clinical use in a field trial. We demonstrated that the system provides a QKD secured environment for discussion and for sharing screens of patient cases among medical experts. The results indicated that our QKD system’s secure key rate is sufficient for a video conference in real time. This demonstrated that QKD is applicable to video conference systems for practical use.

We developed a system for real-time transmission of genome sequence data using quantum cryptography and have succeeded in the quantum cryptography transmission of genome sequence data with data volumes exceeding several hundred gigabytes. This demonstrated that quantum cryptography can transmit large amounts of data and has practical applications in the fields of genomic research and genomic medicine.

Quantum Key Distribution has moved from its theoretical promises of unconditional security to rapidly approaching real world deployments. An important part of this has been the significant order of magnitude increases in the secure key bit rate seen over the last few years. However, these advances have almost all been confined to the physical hardware stage of QKD, with the following classical post-processing of the key required often unable to keep up with the high raw bit rates. In any real implementation this would lead to bottlenecks, limiting the actual bit rate of the system. Here we report details of a full software implementation of high speed error correction for QKD based on rate adaptable Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes, which is not only able to operate at the full rate of a high speed QKD system but also reveals less information than current protocols, resulting in an increase in secure key rate.