Toshiba's Cambridge Research Lab Sets Quantum Encryption record

Quantum cyptography is postulated to be unbreakable. However, the quantum key must be held by the receiving party for the encrypted message to be deciphered. Until now, the speed at which a quantum key can be distributed has been limited to 1.9 Mbps.

Toshiba Research Europe Limited’s Cambridge Research Laboratory in the UK has just announced a new data distribution speed record of 13.7 Mbps - seven times the previous record, which was also achieved by Toshiba last year. The transmission spanned 10km over an optical fiber.

The details of the new device will be announced at the QCrypt 2017 conference, which will be held at the University of Cambridge from September 18-22.

Toshiba says it is already applying quantum encrption to secure genomic data in Japan.