Cisco Systems made its quantum ambitions clear yesterday, unveiling a strategy centered on what it sees as a core challenge for the field: networking.
“Just as Cisco helped build infrastructure for the internet, we’re now creating quantum networking technology that will be the foundation for the quantum internet, making quantum computing practical years ahead of current timelines,” stated Vijoy Pandey, Senior Vice President of Outshift by Cisco.
The tech company introduced a prototype Quantum Network Entanglement Chip, developed through a notable partnership with UC Santa Barbara, and simultaneously announced the launch of Cisco Quantum Labs in Santa Monica, California.
The company’s stated aim is to accelerate the development of practical, large-scale quantum computation, potentially trimming five to ten years off current timelines by enabling the interconnection of many quantum processors. This move positions Cisco to build foundational elements for a future “quantum internet,” a concept detailed in their research paper, “Quantum Data Center Infrastructures.”
The new chip, a product of Cisco’s “Outshift” incubator, is engineered to generate pairs of entangled photons—the quantum phenomenon Albert Einstein famously described as “spooky action at a distance.” Cisco highlighted several features of the prototype: it operates at room temperature, a practical advantage, and uses standard telecommunication wavelengths, making it compatible with existing fiber optic infrastructure.
It’s a miniaturized Photonic Integrated Chip (PIC), a technology that integrates various optical functions on a single chip, similar to how electronic integrated circuits combine transistors.
This PIC reportedly consumes less than 1 milliwatt of power. According to Cisco, the chip can produce one million high-fidelity entanglement pairs per output channel, with an in-chip rate potentially reaching 200 million pairs per second.
More technically, the device employs a process known as “spontaneous four-wave mixing in III-V semiconductor waveguides on a silicon wafer platform,” achieving up to 99% fidelity and allowing for arrays of entanglement sources on a single chip for extensive multiplexing. Cisco claims this makes it the “brightest chip scale source today.”
Cisco’s Vijoy Pandey told Fast Company, “We’re a networking company. We’re looking at quantum networking and quantum security,” framed the initiative: “Our thesis is pretty straightforward: To make [quantum computing] practical, you need to scale it out. You need a network, and to have a quantum network, you need a quantum entanglement chip. That’s the first building block.” He also suggested a transformative period ahead, stating, “There’s going to be a ChatGPT moment for quantum. We need to start putting the fundamental building blocks together to prepare.”
However, Pandey also noted that Cisco does not yet have a timeline for when the entanglement chip will generate revenue, emphasizing its current prototype status.
Building the Quantum Infrastructure
The new Cisco Quantum Labs in Santa Monica, strategically located near UC Santa Barbara to enhance collaboration with Professor Galan Moody’s pioneering integrated quantum photonics group, will initially house around 15-20 quantum physicists and engineers. This facility will be central to developing what Cisco describes as a “full quantum networking stack.”
This stack includes entanglement distribution protocols, a distributed quantum computing compiler, a Quantum Network Development Kit (QNDK), and a Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG) based on quantum vacuum noise.
Professor Moody commented on the collaboration in a Cisco Outshift blog post: “We’re excited to collaborate with Cisco to co-develop entanglement sources for their quantum network. Integrated photonics enables many sources to be combined onto a single chip, and by packaging these sources with optical fiber and electronic controls, a single device can boost the entanglement rates for many users on their quantum network.”
The Cisco-UCSB partnership has roots going back to at least November 2021, when Cisco supported UCSB research into photonic integrated circuits, initially exploring materials like aluminum gallium arsenide (AlGaAs).
Cisco’s strategy for quantum networking is twofold. The first direction is building the “Quantum Network for the Quantum World,” enabling distributed quantum computing, advanced sensing, and complex optimization. The second, “Quantum Network for the Classical World,” aims to use quantum principles for immediate benefits in existing networks.
Pandey elaborated on this saying that even before we have large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computers, the ability to generate and distribute entanglement reliably can bring benefits to today’s networks citing applications like secure communications via quantum key distribution, synchronizing financial trades, and improving distributed sensor networks for tasks like meteorite detection.
“You need to synchronize clocks and the timestamps on all of these snapshots that are taking place from across the globe,” he explained.
The envisioned quantum data center architecture comprises three layers: a physical layer of specialized quantum hardware, an entanglement management layer, and a computing layer to partition algorithms across networked processors.
To address the challenge of connecting different quantum systems that may operate at varying frequencies, Cisco is also experimenting with complementary technology using rubidium vapor cells, aiming to create entangled pairs with photons suitable for both computing platforms and telecom-frequency networking.
A Crowded Field and Future Safeguards
Cisco’s foray into quantum networking hardware places it within an active and competitive environment. In April, IBM announced a $150 billion, five-year investment in US technology, with a substantial $30 billion-plus portion for quantum and mainframe R&D.
Earlier, in February, Amazon’s AWS revealed its Ocelot prototype quantum chip, using bosonic qubits for better error correction. Oskar Painter, AWS Quantum Hardware Director, said of their approach: “We didn’t take an existing architecture and then try to incorporate error correction afterwards. We selected our qubit and architecture with quantum error correction as the top requirement.”
That same month, Microsoft introduced its Majorana 1 quantum processor, based on topological qubits, which the company hopes will inherently reduce errors. However, John Preskill, a Caltech physicist also involved with Amazon’s quantum efforts, noted at the time, “There is no publicly available evidence that this test has been conducted successfully.”
Google, in December 2024, showcased its 105-qubit Willow chip, which it stated had crossed a key error correction threshold. Dr. Hartmut Neven of Google Quantum AI remarked, “In other words, we achieved an exponential reduction in the error rate.”
Recognizing the long-term security implications, Cisco is also implementing Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) NIST standards across its product portfolio. This mirrors actions by IBM, which in October 2024 launched its Guardium Data Security Center featuring NIST-standardized quantum-safe algorithms like CRYSTALS-Kyber and SPHINCS+. These moves are a response to the anticipated threat quantum computers pose to current encryption, a concern highlighted by NIST’s finalization of new PQC standards in August 2024.
Navigating the Quantum Network Build-out
Cisco is not going it alone in defining the future of quantum data centers. In February, the company joined the Quantum Datacenter Alliance (QDA), an industry group focused on scalability, networking, and interoperability. Bill Gartner, SVP and GM of Cisco’s optical systems and optics, commented then, “Quantum networking, as a catalyst for distributed quantum computing, aligns closely with our strategic objectives of creating flexible, high-performance, and energy-efficient network solutions.”
This followed an earlier collaboration announced in January 2024 with UK startup Nu Quantum, where Cisco became a prospective end-user for a “Quantum Networking Unit”
Some analysts view Cisco’s focus on quantum networking infrastructure as a “picks and shovels” strategy, positioning the company as an enabler regardless of which qubit technology ultimately prevails. However, significant challenges persist, particularly in standardizing interfaces between diverse quantum computing modalities and Cisco’s networking hardware.
The journey to a functional quantum internet, while potentially accelerated by Cisco’s contributions, will require navigating these complex engineering and interoperability issues. Reza Nejabati, Head of Quantum Research and Cisco Quantum Labs, acknowledged the development path, telling Fast Company the entanglement chip took three to four years to build and that Cisco is now “working toward more commercial fabrication. There’s a whole bunch of hardware and software technology that we’re bringing up. The quantum proof of concept is happening.”
For a more detailed technical perspective on Cisco’s vision, Ramana Kompella and Reza Nejabati have elaborated further on the Cisco Outshift blog.
