Q-KAAS: QUANTUM-KEY AS A SERVICE — ON-DEMAND QUANTUM KEY DISTRIBUTION SERVICE

Operation co-funded by EU cohesion policy (European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)) under the programme Multi-regional Spain - ERDF (2014ES16RFOP002), managing authority: Subdirección General de Gestión del FEDER, de la Dirección General de Fondos Europeos del Ministerio de Hacienda.. The source names no beneficiary for this operation. Location: Spain. Budget: total eligible expenditure EUR 221,766; EU co-financing EUR 110,883 (co-financing rate 50%), as stated by the source. Runs 2021-06-02 to 2022-09-30. Source: Kohesio, EU cohesion policy projects managed by national and regional authorities (not CORDIS). Summary from Kohesio (English machine translation by the source): An interconnectivity project will be developed between Madrid’s quantum key network infrastructures and the conventional optical communications network in order to provide a much greater privacy capability than other current standardised systems. We call the hybrid network the physical infrastructure of fiber optic and 5G communications that is equipped with the quantum key distribution capacity generated on demand. The proposal aims to demonstrate the possibility of distributing quantum key in conventional networks. The objective is the design and development of an unmarketable network prototype for this purpose. The project will be developed within the context of quantum key distribution systems (QKD) in a software-defined network (SDN) that will improve both encryption security and communications performance, thus leading to a “quantum safe” network environment. The quantum Key as a Service (q-KaaS) model we propose is an encryption method that uses several perfectly random keys in the context of two separate QKD systems both physically and logically. In this way, it is guaranteed that the classic part of the key request is accessed through at least two differentiated public networks (FO and 5G).

Original source.

Source: Kohesio (EU cohesion policy projects), European Commission, Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO). Retrieved 2026-10-21. Licence: CC0 1.0 (Cohesion Open Data Platform, dataset 2014-2020 Kohesio projects). Selected metadata, adapted presentation; the publisher's record is authoritative. No endorsement by the source is implied. Licence: public domain dedication (CC0 1.0).

AI-assisted summary: Q-KAAS is an on-demand quantum key distribution service co-funded by the EU in Spain, with a budget of EUR 221,766. The project aims to connect quantum key networks with conventional optical communications to enhance privacy capabilities. Suggested technology pillar: communication. Generated by AI from the public source text; it may contain errors and the original source is authoritative.