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Discrete-Modulated QKD Produced General-Attack Keys in Real Time

A near-commercial pipeline generated composable keys from finite blocks of roughly one million rounds.

Published Updated Story ID: mp-2026-09-18-014
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Summary

A near-commercial pipeline generated composable keys from finite blocks of roughly one million rounds.

Discrete modulation can make continuous-variable quantum key distribution practical for telecom hardware, but finite-size composable security against general attacks has been difficult to demonstrate. This quadrature phase-shift-keying system uses a variable-length security framework built on entropy accumulation and conic optimization. The experiment reports the first real-time DM-CVQKD implementation to generate composable secret keys against general attacks with blocks on the order of one million rounds. The result is an experimental pipeline, not a blanket security claim for existing commercial links.

Why it matters

A near-commercial pipeline generated composable keys from finite blocks of roughly one million rounds.

Limits and context

  • The result is an experimental pipeline, not a blanket security claim for existing commercial links.

Key claims

  1. A near-commercial pipeline generated composable keys from finite blocks of roughly one million rounds.

    Qualification: The result is an experimental pipeline, not a blanket security claim for existing commercial links.

    Evidence: source-2026-09-18-014

Sources

  1. arXiv preprint 2609.20596arXiv · primary research

Corrections

No corrections have been recorded for this story.