Senetas Corporation Limited (ASX:SEN), the world’s leading...

Senetas Corporation Limited (ASX:SEN), the world’s leading developer and supplier of high
speed network encryption hardware, today announced that its Cerberis Hybrid Quantum
Encryption system had been sold to the City of Durban in South Africa.
Senetas CEO, John DuBois, said the sale to University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Quantum
Technology demonstrated growing interest in the technology as this was the third continent
to invest in the ultra secure encryption after Europe in 2007 (Geneva, Switzerland) and this
year Asia (Bangkok, Thailand) deployed Cerberis.
In an announcement issued in Durban yesterday, Prof. Francesco Petruccione, who heads
the Centre of Quantum Technology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said they were all set
to install Cerberis locally in the eThekwini Municipality “launching Durban as the world’s first
Quantum City”.
Prof Petruccione said his Quantum Centre and the Innovation Company of the University of
KwaZulu-Natal worked together to realize this security solution over the Municipal fibre
optic infrastructure, in line with the SmartCity initiative of the City of Durban. The quantum
network consists of four nodes in a Municipal Area Network star configuration.
“The security of the quantum key distribution is based on quantum mechanical principles,
rather than on the algorithmic procedures of classical cryptography,” he said.
“This makes Durban the only city in Africa with the ability to share its broadband access to
vital services, businesses, schools, hospitals and tertiary institutions. With Durban being the
SmartCity of Africa, the next generation of networking solutions has prompted it to leap into
the quantum regime,” he said.
Mr DuBois who visited Prof Petruccione’s Centre to discuss the project earlier this year, said
the initial test bed network linking Durban’s municipalities, would allow vital services to be
communicated securely between networked municipal buildings in Pinetown, Westville and
Cato Manor.
Prof Petruccione said: “Such a test-bed network will pave the way for the roll out of further
quantum security solutions to create an unsurpassed communication solution. Such a
network will be of interest to government agencies, finance houses and large corporate
clients in securing their confidential data. The Center for Quantum Technology has
partnered with idQuantique and Senetas Corporation, leading companies in quantum and
classical encryption.”
He described a Quantum Network as a network that implements quantum key distribution in
a multi-node ‘key-on-demand’ environment permitting transparent integration of quantum
cryptography into current optical fibre infrastructure. This combines the power of fibre optic
technology with ultra-high quantum security, providing an unsurpassed communication
solution.
About The Centre for Quantum Technology (CQT)
CQT was established in 2005 under the leadership of Professor Francesco Petruccione.
Recently, the National Research Foundation within the Institutional Research Development
Programme recognised the Centre as the national Quantum Information Science Research
niche area. Quantum Information Processing and Communication (QIPC) is also identified as
an emerging technology in the national photonics initiative (PISA). The Centre’s primary
research within QIPC is the development of a Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) device and
the realization of Quantum Networks. The Centre researches both theoretical and
experimental aspects of QIPC. Further information about CQT may be found at
http://quantum.ukzn.ac.za.