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Quantum Internet Trial Network Links Beijing and Shanghai: 1,200 km Quantum Key Distribution Achieved

A University of Science and Technology of China team uses quantum repeater technology to achieve end-to-end quantum key distribution over 1,200 km between Beijing and Shanghai, with a bit error rate below 0.8% — a critical step toward commercial quantum internet.

Quantum Internet Breaks the Intercity Barrier

In mid-November 2027, Pan Jianwei's team at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) announced the first end-to-end quantum key distribution (QKD) link between Beijing and Shanghai based on quantum repeater technology. The total fiber-optic span covers 1,200 kilometers with a bit error rate held below 0.78%.

Previously, QKD distance was constrained by fiber-optic attenuation, with practical range rarely exceeding 300 km. Pan's team overcame this limit by deploying four quantum repeater nodes — in Jinan, Xuzhou, Nanjing, and Hefei — using entanglement swapping to relay quantum states segment by segment.

"This is not a lab demonstration — it's a trial system running on real metropolitan fiber-optic networks," Pan said at a press briefing. According to the team, the trial network has operated stably for over 72 hours, completing 32,000 quantum key exchanges during that period at an average key generation rate of 847 bits per second.

Commercial Viability and Real-World Challenges

The core value proposition of a quantum internet lies in theoretically absolute security — any eavesdropping attempt is immediately detectable by the laws of quantum mechanics. Li Ming, chief quantum communications expert at China Mobile Research, noted in his commentary that the trial validates the technical feasibility of intercity quantum communication, but large-scale commercial deployment remains distant.

Current bottlenecks include the manufacturing cost of quantum repeaters (approximately ¥12 million / $1.7 million per unit) and a key generation rate that still falls short of supporting large-scale data encryption demands. The team plans to increase the number of repeater nodes to eight by 2028, targeting a key rate of 100,000 bits per second.

One area of concern is that quantum internet could introduce new security risks of its own — if quantum communication is monopolized by a handful of institutions, it may widen information asymmetry. Ensuring universal access to quantum infrastructure is a policy question that regulators need to address proactively.