Hebrew University’s Quantum Information Science Center Receives Israeli Communication Grant

The Quantum Information Science Center at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has won a 7.5 million ILS ($2.1 million) tender from the Israeli government to lead the construction of a national demonstrator for quantum communications technologies.

Professor Nadav Katz studies a low-temperature setup for testing superconducting detectors at the Hebrew University's Quantum Information Science Center. Courtesy of Yitz Woolf / Hebrew University.

The goal of the project is to develop homegrown Israeli expertise and technology for a national quantum communications system that will prevent eavesdropping, protect data privacy and secure national infrastructure.

"This project to build a national quantum communications system will position Israel in the leading edge of research toward ultimately secured communication systems,” said Nadav Katz, director of the Quantum Information Science Center and a researcher at the Hebrew University's Racah Institute of Physics. “With support from the government of Israel and in cooperation with our research partners, this is the first Israeli national project in the emerging field of quantum information technologies."

As part of this project, researchers will build a communication system at the Hebrew University's laboratories based on single photons representing quantum bits. Quantum bits make it possible to perform calculations in new ways that are not possible in current communications systems or supercomputers.

The contract was awarded by the Israeli Ministry of Defense, which is tasked with developing a secure communications infrastructure to improve privacy and secure national infrastructure. The Quantum Information Science Center of the Hebrew University is a center for the investigation of both fundamental and applied science of quantum information.