QUBITECH took part in the kick-off meeting of the Digital Europe project INQREASE (INdustrial Quantum ecosystem foR nExt-generAtion Secure nEtwork), held on 16–17 September 2026 in Padova, Italy. The two-day meeting was hosted by the project coordinator ThinkQuantum and gathered the full consortium to align on the technical roadmap, the work plan and the certification strategy for the 48 months ahead. Co-funded by the European Commission under Grant Agreement No. 101304887, INQREASE runs from July 2026 to June 2030. Its ambition is to establish a mature European industrial ecosystem for security-certified terrestrial quantum key distribution (QKD) technologies and systems, and to enable their integration into operational telecommunication networks. The project follows a vertically integrated approach that spans the entire technology stack, from advanced quantum components and photonic integration to complete QKD systems, network software and real-world deployments, with leading European industrial and academic partners contributing complementary expertise.
On the component side, INQREASE will mature key QKD building blocks such as integrated photonic circuits, high-speed single-photon detectors and time taggers to manufacturing readiness levels of 8–9. These components will be combined into compact QKD system architectures featuring key management, software-defined networking (SDN) control and quantum/classical multiplexing. Integrated QKD prototypes will then be demonstrated over real-world fibre networks, showcasing interoperability with classical communications infrastructure, while software-defined networking, post-quantum cryptography integration and PUF-based authentication modules will further harden secure quantum communications. In parallel, the consortium will guide the entire technology stack through rigorous Common Criteria security certification processes in collaboration with evaluation bodies, developing methodologies tailored to quantum security assessment.
Within INQREASE, QUBITECH (q.ubitech.eu) is responsible for the integration and demonstration of the PUF-based authentication solution within the project’s testbed environments. This activity will validate the full functionality, interoperability and performance of the developed device under realistic operational conditions, with particular emphasis on its role in QKD switching scheme authentication as an integrated capability, alongside key management system (KMS) authentication across multi-domain scenarios. QUBITECH will also explore the FIPS 140-3 certification path for the PUF-based key generation module, assessing it against the security and robustness requirements defined by the standard for cryptographic modules. This work lays the groundwork for future certification and facilitates the adoption of the solution in regulated and high-assurance quantum communication environments.
“Physical unclonable functions give us a hardware root of trust that is extremely hard to clone or tamper with, which is exactly what authentication in a QKD network demands,” said Dr Simos Tsintzos, Technology Director of QUBITECH and responsible for the delivery of its technical work in INQREASE. “In INQREASE we take our PUF-based solution out of the lab and into real testbeds, where it must authenticate QKD switching and key management across multiple domains without compromise. Pairing that validation with a FIPS 140-3 assessment is the step that turns a promising technology into a component that operators and certification bodies can rely on.”
The INQREASE consortium brings together twelve partners from six European countries: ThinkQuantum S.r.l. (coordinator), Università degli Studi di Padova and Leonardo S.p.A. from Italy; AIT Austrian Institute of Technology from Austria; imec from Belgium; Aurea Technology from France; GRNET, QRBIT and QUBITECH from Greece; and QoolNet S.L. and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid from Spain. Demonstrations will take place across four testbed infrastructures, including HellasQCI in Greece and the Madrid Quantum Network in Spain, together with the infrastructures of the University of Padova and Leonardo in Italy.
QUBITECH’s participation in INQREASE builds on UBITECH’s long-standing commitment to quantum-safe and quantum-enabled security, and complements the group’s parallel activities on post-quantum cryptography and certificate infrastructures. It further consolidates the role of the Greek quantum ecosystem in the European Quantum Communication Infrastructure (EuroQCI) landscape.
The INQREASE project is co-funded by the European Union under the Digital Europe Programme, Grant Agreement No. 101304887.
