Although most companies and organizations are embracing cloud computing, security concerns still abound. Doubts about data protection on the cloud remain a key reason why some still haven’t adopted the technology. Add quantum computing to the mix, and security concerns grow at an exponential rate. But in a new study, Austrian researchers suggest a solution to cloud security at the quantum level: a system of photon entanglement that would prevent data from getting into the wrong hands.
Quantum computing is a major goal in the world of computing, but quantum computers will be so complex that security might be difficult to maintain in an already intricate cloud structure. In a quantum cloud structure, intricate quantum computers would become the main servers for data hosting.
"A key challenge in using such central quantum computers is enabling a quantum computation on a remote server while keeping the client's data hidden from the server," researchers write in a study from Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology at the University of Vienna and the Austria-based Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information.
Led by Stefanie Barz, the team was able to entangle photons and then process them using a system of splitters, filters and couplers. The photons could then be analyzed using quantum algorithms.
This kind of entanglement would allow the owner of data to know the photons’ entangled state, while preventing a cloud company from deciphering them. To a person without proper credentials to view the data, the photons would be an unintelligible jumble.
"By inspecting the output, you can know if the company really has a quantum computer, without disclosing your algorithm, the input or indeed the output," Vlatko Vedral of the University of Oxford explained to Science magazine, in which the study was recently published. "The computation is thus 'doubly' blind."
Although the system still has some imperfections—some photons, for example, can be lost during the process of entanglement—it is a major leap in the possibility of cloud computing at the quantum level.
"Our demonstration is crucial for unconditionally secure quantum cloud computing," the researchers write, "and might become a key ingredient for real-life applications, especially when considering the challenges of making powerful quantum computers widely available."

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