UArizona Receives $26 Million Grant to Architect the Quantum Internet

The University of Arizona has been awarded a five-year, $26 million grant from the National Science Foundation, with an additional five-year $24.6 million option, to establish and lead a new National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center – called the Center for Quantum Networks – with core partners Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University.

CQN aims to lay the foundations of the quantum internet, which will revolutionize how humankind computes, communicates and senses the world by creating a fabric to connect quantum computers, data centers and gadgets using their native quantum information states of “quantum bits,” or qubits. Qubits offer dramatic increases in processing capacity by not just having the 0 or 1 state of the classical bit, but also allowing what is termed a “superposition” of both states at the same time.

About the James C. Wyant College of Optical Sciences

The James C. Wyant College of Optical Sciences is internationally recognized for its innovative and unusually comprehensive research programs. The college’s research encompasses a broad set of technologies and techniques for exploiting the properties and applications of light, touching virtually every field of science and industry. The faculty are innovative and decorated – and constantly expanding the boundaries of optics knowledge.

This is the third Engineering Research Center led by the University of Arizona. The other two are the ERC for Environmentally Benign Semiconductor Manufacturing, led by the College of Engineering, and the Center for Integrated Access Networks, led by the James C. Wyant College of Optical Sciences.

CQN will be bolstered by the Wyant College’s recent endowments – including the largest faculty endowment gift in the history of the University of Arizona – and the planned construction of the new Grand Challenges Research Building, supported by the state of Arizona.