QED-C and CQN’s new roadmap says current quantum networking can support only 2 of 10 assessed applications—quantum key distribution and point-to-point distributed sensing—and both remain limited to short, fixed links.
More than 50 experts built the gap analysis, which ties 10 commercial use cases to hardware metrics and technology readiness, highlighting bottlenecks in transmission rate, distance, fidelity and picosecond-to-femtosecond synchronization.
Three infrastructure layers—quantum optical network switches, quantum repeaters and quantum satellites—were identified as enabling 9 of the 10 applications, while better quantum light sources and light-matter interfaces are needed across eight.
The roadmap projects short-range uses such as QKD, quantum digital signatures and intra-data-center clustered quantum computing could be commercial within 5 years, while long-distance distributed and blind quantum computing face roughly a 10-year horizon.
QED-C and CQN said the findings should guide public funding and private investment toward foundational components needed to build scalable, wide-area quantum networks.