Copenhagen, Denmark — 29 September to 1 October 2025
At ECOC Exhibition 2025, PETRUS CSA , coordinated by Deutsche Telekom and supported by QUARTER EuroQCI partners LuxQuanta & AIT Austrian Institute of Technolgy, presented the most advanced European demonstration of Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and quantum-safe networking to date. This achievement represents an important step toward the real-world deployment of Europe’s future quantum-secure communication infrastructure.
The event continues a growing sequence of large-scale demonstrations across Europe, following activities at Digital Assembly (Stockholm) and EQTC (Hannover) in 2023, and ECOC 2024 (Frankfurt). Each demonstration increases complexity and moves Europe closer to interoperable, commercially deployable quantum-safe networks.
A European Demonstration Without Borders
The ECOC 2025 demonstration brought together leading European research institutes, universities, network operators, cybersecurity companies, satellite providers, and QKD manufacturers. This collaboration ensures that different vendors, domains, and technologies can operate as part of one shared European infrastructure.
Participating organisations included:
AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, CANCOM Austria, DLR, Exail, Fraunhofer IOF, Fraunhofer HHI, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, NKUA, Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, KEEQuant, LuxQuanta, Merqury Cybersecurity, Q*Bird, QUBITECH, QTI, SES Satellites, Telsy, ThinkQuantum, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, and VeriQloud.
This diversity reflects a core requirement of EuroQCI: to build resilient, vendor-agnostic, and interoperable European quantum-safe networks.
Delegates from LuxQuanta. Vanesa Díaz (CEO) & Sergi Vizcaino (Outreach & Product Marketing)
Demonstration Highlights at ECOC 2025
The demonstration at Booth E1206 showcased a miniature model of a real European deployment, connecting terrestrial and satellite-based QKD links across multiple national domains.
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7 interconnected domains: Spain, Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Malta, and space
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8 KMS providers, enabling centralized and decentralized hop-by-hop key forwarding, PQC-enhanced approaches, SDN and non-SDN architectures
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9 QKD system providers, illustrating multiple technologies including CV-QKD, DV-QKD and MDI-QKD
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Integration of two simulated space links
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Live use-cases, including quantum-secured video calls, sensitive data backup, and VPN encryption
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Optical switching and PUF-based authentication implemented directly at the QKD layer
This setup represents a reference architecture for future EuroQCI deployments, where systems from different providers work together securely and efficiently.
QUARTER EuroQCI: Mission in Action
PETRUS and QUARTER share the same goal: to accelerate the transition from quantum research into operational, pan-European quantum-safe communication infrastructures.
This demonstration confirms that:
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Multi-vendor QKD systems can operate across borders
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Independent KMS domains can interoperate reliably
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Space and terrestrial QKD technologies can be combined
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Commercial use-cases are quantum-safe today
Together, these achievements strengthen Europe’s strategic autonomy in secure communications and reduce dependence on non-European technologies.
LuxQuanta CV-QKD Systems at ECOC Demo
