The quantum race in telecom is heating up  

By Sulagna Saha April 9, 2026

Collected at: https://www.rcrwireless.com/20260409/quantum/the-quantum-race-in-telecom-is-heating-up

As RCR expands daily coverage to include quantum, here is a quick update on the latest developments

The hype around quantum in telecommunications is becoming impossible to ignore, as trials and pilots continue to make headlines at a steady clip. The most developed use case at this point is obviously security, as the technology is expected to shatter today’s encryption algorithms, but sizable investments and R&D work are also being put into making it a viable solution in other areas like network optimization, energy management, radio resource management, fault detection, and assurance.

According to STL Partners’ quantum tracker Q-Beat, the number of quantum tech deployments announced by telcos through June of 2025 totaled 75, with 29 operators engaged in the tech. A majority (35%) of these projects were announced, a quarter of them launched, and 28% were in the trial or proof of concept (PoC) stage. 

Regions where activities are the strongest are North America, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Australia. Although no single economy holds a monopoly yet, countries are moving quickly to commercialize the technology. 

Here are some of the recent projects that generated significant buzz. 

Australia is frequently described as the “rising quantum star.” Naturally, its largest telco, Telstra, had an head start in quantum research. The company entered a collaboration with Silicon Quantum Computing (SQC) — a spinoff of the ARC Center for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology — in 2024, launching a 12 month trial to explore the predictive analytics capabilities of quantum machine learning. 

The experiment ended last year with the quantum-enhanced model matching the performance of Telstra’s deep learning models with a much shorter training time, opening up possibilities for quicker insights in real-time network environments. 

“This trial shows how quantum capabilities could complement our existing systems and technology to deliver faster insights and better outcomes for our customers,” said Shailin Sehgal, executive of global networks and technology at the Telstra’s Group.

Deutsche Telekom has also been dabbling in quantum technologies. In January, the company entered a collab with Qunnect — a quantum hardware manufacturer — to demonstrate quantum teleportation on a commercial network. 

The trial, which was run by Deutsche Telekom’s R&D division, T-Labs, achieved successful teleportation of qubits across a 30 km commercial fiber loop in Berlin. The test was performed on Telekom’s quantum infrastructure using Qunnect’s quantum entanglement distribution hardware.

“Our fiber optic network is quantum ready,” said Abdu Mudesir, broad member at Telekom. “In Berlin we have now proven that quantum information can be transmitted over 30 kilometers of commercial Telekom fiber optics outside of a laboratory. This is done in parallel with regular data traffic and with a very high average accuracy of 90 percent. With quantum teleportation, we are laying the technical foundation for networking quantum computers over longer distances in the future and pooling computing power in more than one location. This will create the next generation of secure communication and a building block for Europe’s technological sovereignty.”

Soon after that, Comcast completed a trial with AMD and Classiq, as part of a bigger initiative that started in October last year. Comcast launched a quantum lab and since has been running trials with partners like D-Wave and Classiq, exploring the use of quantum computing in broadband network management.

“What our customers want is simple, fast, secure and reliable connectivity, but when you operate a network as large and dynamic as ours. Delivering on that promise is complex, especially in the face of growing network demand,” said Elad Nafshi, chief network officer at Comcast. “Our results have shown that quantum computing for network optimization isn’t theoretical – it’s practical, scalable, and grounded in the needs of our customers,” Nafshi added.

The University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas) recently announced an undertaking with AT&T on a quantum network edge project that explores post-quantum cryptography and its real-world implications on the open systems interconnection (OSI) stack. 

At MWC, Telefónica demoed a set of quantum-safe solutions, focused on securing communications inside private networks using NIST standards-based algorithms, and managing and updating IoT and smart devices.

GSMA is also in on the conversation. At the event, GSMA announced a partnership with QCentroid — a Spanish provider of quantum-as-a-service (QaaS) platforms — as part of a broader effort to enable telcos to engage with the technology. 

The partnership seeks to help plug “a growing gap between interest and action” among operators, vendors, and researchers. Companies can use the QCentroid’s enterprise Quantum Ops platform as a sandbox to benchmark and orchestrate quantum-classical optimization workflows across CPUs, GPUs, and various quantum backends. 

According to a GSMA report surveying 100 operators from around the world, 60% have quantum in their roadmap, with 12% planning deployment within the next 12 months. Use cases, in order of priority, are network security and network efficiency. 

The research also finds that operators are tapping cloud-based quantum computing services to sidestep upfront investments which allow them to explore the opportunities without excessive spending.

In the U.K., BT remains one of the biggest proponents of quantum technology. The company’s quantum initiatives which go back over three decades, include a QKD-secured metro network with Toshiba, a quantum-safe VPN with Fortinet and Arquit Quantum, and participation in a pipeline of government-backed research projects. However, senior research manager, Andrew Lord, says that commercial use cases may still be 5 to 10 years away.

The company is actively urging organizations across the quantum supply chain to work together to develop the robust infrastructure needed for quantum innovation.

Other telcos actively pursuing quantum at this time include SK Telecom, Orange, and Vodafone.