GALICIA LAUNCHES SPAIN’S LONGEST QUANTUM COMMUNICATION LINE, CONNECTING SANTIAGO AND VIGO AND ACHIEVING A HISTORIC MILESTONE FOR CYBERSECURITY
- The Regional Minister for Science, Román Rodríguez, and the President of the University of Vigo, Manuel Reigosa, participate in the launch of this 120 km connection.
- They send the first message from the Vigo Quantum Communication Centre in the city of Vigo to the Galician Supercomputing Centre in Compostela through this QKD terrestrial link.
- Among other possibilities, the system allows for the protection of critical infrastructure, such as government communications, as well as the security of banking transactions and citizens’ health data.
- The new technology deployed, which will facilitate ultra-secure communications, will also be extended to other points in the Galician research network.
- Developed by CESGA researchers with the support of the Vigo centre, the link is possible thanks to the agreement signed between CESGA and Red.es and the funding from the Complementary Quantum Communications Plan.
Galician R&D&I reached a new milestone today with the launch of Spain’s longest terrestrial quantum communication line, which is also one of the longest in Europe: 120 kilometres connecting Santiago de Compostela and Vigo, specifically the Galician Supercomputing Centre (CESGA) and the Vigo Quantum Communication Centre (VQCC). The Regional Minister for Education, Science, Universities and Vocational Training, Román Rodríguez, and the President of the University of Vigo, Manuel Reigosa, participated in the launch of this connection at a ceremony also attended by, among others, the Deputy Director of RedIRIS at Red.es, Esther Robles.
At the event, the first message was sent via this fibre-based Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) terrestrial link″, a historic milestone for national cybersecurity″, said the representative of the Xunta de Galicia. The system will enable ultra-secure communications, initially between Santiago and Vigo, although there are plans to extend it to other points in the Galician research network and connect it to EuroQCI, the secure quantum communication infrastructure that will cover the entire European Union, through the European IberianQCI project, of which CESGA and VQCC are partners.
The practical applications of this technology are wide-ranging and highly significant, ″from the protection of critical infrastructure, such as electricity grids and air traffic control systems, to the security of banking transactions and citizens health data,″ explained Román Rodríguez, among other uses such as the control of production plants and monitoring of infrastructure in the energy sector, or to ensure the exchange of sensitive data related to technological development in the pharmaceutical industry. It can also guarantee confidentiality in government and military communications, as well as in high-value corporate networks, as classical cryptography will be at risk as quantum computers become more powerful. ″This advance prepares us for that era, offering a layer of security that will be immune to future attack methods″, he added. 
Example of collaboration between administrations
The line has been developed by CESGA researchers with advice from VQCC. It has received investment of more than €850,000, financed under a collaboration agreement between CESGA and Red.es and the Complementary Quantum Communications Plan through European funds from the Recovery and Resilience Plan and the Xunta’s own funds. The equipment was purchased thanks to the support of Red.es/ReIRIS. The event was also attended by the director of the Galician Innovation Agency, Carmen Cotelo, and the director of CESGA, Lois Orosa.
This fibre optic link was made possible thanks to a €4 million agreement signed between Red.es, a public entity attached to the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Administration, through the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, and CESGA to improve the extension, capacity and management of Galicia’s IT and scientific communications infrastructure in its connection to RedIRIS. These actions under the agreement with Red.es, which include the deployment of this 120 km fibre optic link with improved optical characteristics for transmitting quantum signals, are financed by the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan through the Next Generation EU Funds.
″The quantum motorway of the future″
″This marks a turning point in communications protection, guaranteeing security that is safe against future attacks″, said Román Rodríguez, who congratulated the technicians involved and thanked the various administrations for their collaboration in ″building this quantum highway of the future″.
In his opinion, this project ″shows Galicia’s commitment to R&D&I in the field of disruptive technologies, such as quantum technology, a commitment that has only just begun and already positions us as a true benchmark in Europe″. He also explained that this line of work is in line with national and European strategies, as established in the Galician Research and Innovation Plan 2025-2027 approved this year by the regional government, in which deep technologies are a priority.
For her part, Esther Robles, deputy director of RedIRIS at Red.es, said she was ″convinced that, over time, many of these advances will be transferred to our communications networks, bringing benefits to the services we provide″.
How does this technology work?
QKD, with which Galicia has set a new milestone, is a revolutionary technology that uses the laws of quantum physics to create and distribute encryption keys in a completely secure manner. Thus, if someone attempts to intercept the key, the simple act of trying to do so alters it, immediately alerting users and making espionage impossible. This method offers security against any future advances in our computing power, something that current encryption systems cannot guarantee in the long term.
This achievement makes it possible to generate quantum keys through a single optical fibre without cuts or signal amplifiers at two locations more than 120 km apart – CESGA in Compostela and VQCC in Vigo. The result demonstrates the viability of QKD technology in real environments and positions Spain at the forefront of research and deployment of quantum communications infrastructures.
Until now, several demonstrations of terrestrial QKD links had been carried out in Spain, mainly concentrated in metropolitan areas such as Madrid and Barcelona, reaching distances of up to 40 km. Overcoming the 100 km barrier is a significant challenge, as the light carrying the quantum information attenuates as it propagates along the optical fibre, requiring the use of signal amplifiers, which are excluded in QKD because the amplification process destroys the quantum information.
The infrastructure is based on European-made QKD transmission and reception equipment, with superconducting single-photon detectors cooled to cryogenic temperatures below -270ºC. This equipment features innovations that mitigate the impact of losses, achieving exceptional performance and stability, which lays the foundation for future national long-distance quantum communication networks.