Demonstration shows real-time orchestration, monitoring, and automated security operations for entanglement-based QKD running on field-ready Cisco infrastructure.
Cisco is now testing Aliro Orchestrator as the quantum network management layer at its Cisco Photonics Center in Vimercate, Italy, to operate and manage a live entanglement-based quantum key distribution (eQKD) network built on zerothird’s eQKD system. The network uses commercially available, rack-mountable hardware and integrates the BBM92 entanglement-based eQKD protocol with Cisco routers. This solution delivers field-ready quantum secure encryption for Cisco routers by delivering keys via the Cisco SKIP interface.
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Commercializing quantum networks is about delivering solutions to run quantum networks as real infrastructure, to make its services as accessible as they are powerful, and delivering that capability without requiring the operator to be a quantum physicist.
In addition to providing users with centralized network management functions, Aliro Orchestrator uses the telemetry provided by the zerothird system to monitor eavesdropper detection, quantum bit error rate (QBER), key generation rates, photon detection statistics, polarization drift, and link and device health, providing continuous visibility into conditions that indicate service integrity or degradation. When metrics cross defined thresholds, the Orchestrator’s Alerts & Alarms engine raises security and operational events and can trigger automated remediation workflows, including recalibration, traffic rerouting, or safe link shutdown. All of these events are logged with timestamps, creating an auditable record of quantum network operations. Delivering these capabilities to network operators can bridge the gap from research-grade demonstrations to commercial network security services. At the application layer, quantum-derived keys are delivered to Cisco 8000 Series routers via the Cisco SKIP interface, enabling live quantum secure MACsec encrypted sessions between routers, showcasing how QKD-sourced keys can integrate with production datacenter networking equipment.
“Commercializing quantum networks isn’t just about getting hardware to work in a controlled environment,” said Michael Cubeddu, Co-founder and CTO at Aliro. “It’s about delivering solutions to run a quantum network as real infrastructure, to make its services as accessible as they are powerful, and delivering that capability without requiring the operator to be a quantum physicist. This implementation of Aliro Orchestrator by our customer Cisco shows what entanglement-based quantum security looks like in practice.”
This marks Aliro’s first quantum network in Europe and validates quantum secure communications using production-grade, commercially available hardware and software. The Cisco Photonics facility serves as a live environment for Cisco to evaluate and test quantum secure communications. zerothird, headquartered in Vienna, provides the complete entanglement-based key generation system for the demonstration — an end-to-end, quantum-secure key generation system based on entanglement. This includes BBM92 end nodes and entanglement-distribution link together with the full on-device key-generation stack: sifting, polarization alignment and tracking, clock synchronization, error correction, and privacy amplification. The zerothird system delivers finished, provably secure keys ready for use, and provides the security telemetry the network is monitored on.
“Achieving true quantum-safe security requires a comprehensive, full-stack approach that integrates both hardware and software. By leveraging the Aliro quantum orchestrator to manage the interaction between third-party QKD hardware and our Cisco 8000 series routers via the SKIP protocol, we are demonstrating seamless, field-ready interoperability.” – Maurizio Gazzola, Sr. Director Optical Architecture at Cisco
“Quantum networking will only scale if systems from different vendors work together. zerothird provides the end-to-end, entanglement-based quantum-secure key generation system, and here it operates alongside Aliro’s orchestration and Cisco’s routing infrastructure. That’s the interoperability the market needs to see,” said Felix Tiefenbacher, CEO, zerothird
Quantum networking has spent years in research environments. This demonstration of entanglement-based QKD running on rack-mountable hardware, managed through enterprise software, feeding quantum-derived keys into live router encryption represents the operational stage of quantum networking. For organizations evaluating quantum secure communications, this demonstration is a meaningful milestone in the commercialization of quantum networks.
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