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IrelandQCI at QCIDays2025, Athens, Greece

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IrelandQCI at QCIDays2025, Athens, Greece

The annual ‘QCI Days’ event is a coming together of the EuroQCI community to discuss the newest trends in quantum-secure communication. This year’s collaborative event was a great success, held 28th – 30th April 2025, hosted by our EuroQCI colleagues HellasQCI in Athens, Greece, with over 300 attendees and 70+ expert speakers representing 30+ countries, all contributing to an outstanding event program, from quantum demonstrations to cross-border collaboration and visionary idea discussions.

IrelandQCI was represented by Project Lead Dr Deirdre Kilbane, Director of Research at Walton Institute South East Technological University, who participated in a dynamic panel session titled ‘QCIDays2025: Innovations for Quantum-Secured Networks!’ The expert panelists showcased how innovation is driving the next generation of quantum-secure communication across Europe.

The 3 day QCIDays2025 conference, organised by HellasQCI, GRNET – Greek Research & Technology Network EuroQCISpain, QCI-CAT Project and Austrian Institute of Technology, and UPM, was a fantastic opportunity for the European quantum communication community to come together with stakeholders and industry representatives, to enjoy:

  • Presentations of Dep1 and Dep2 projects, showcasing Europe’s growing QCI ecosystem
  • Keynotes, panel discussions and insights into the security perspectives of Quantum Key Distribution (QKD)
  • Exciting demos, exhibitions and valuable networking opportunities.
  • A deep dive into large network deployments and practical QKD use cases
  • 20+ company pitches from across the quantum communication value chain.

And with that, the key was passed back to Austria – see you in 2026!

IrelandQCI

IrelandQCI ‘Building a National Quantum Communication Infrastructure for Ireland’ incorporates integrating innovative and secure quantum devices and systems into conventional communication infrastructure. The project aim is establishing an infrastructure for Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), a method of communication based on sharing encryption keys using quantum physics in a manner that boosts security, which will be distributed over the existing classical network, creating a quantum communication network that will provide a huge increase to information security in Ireland.

Funding bodies

Co-funded by the European Commission, European Space Agency and the Irish Government’s Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, IrelandQCI is the €10 million Irish project within the EU-wide Quantum Communications Infrastructure (EuroQCI) programme.

IrelandQCI is one of several across the EU which sees the European Commission working with 27 Member States towards the deployment of a secure quantum communication infrastructure spanning the EU. This project has received funding from the European Union’s DIGITAL Europe Programme under grant agreement No. 101091520.

Consortium partners

Waterford’s Walton Institute, at South East Technological University (SETU), is leading the IrelandQCI project on behalf of CONNECT Research Ireland Centre for Future Networks and Communications, with partners specialising in quantum technologies at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and University College Cork (UCC)’s Tyndall National Institute, with support from University College Dublin (UCD) and Maynooth University (MU) and the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC) at University of Galway. HEAnet and ESB Telecoms are also key partners in the project, as the quantum communications network is being built across the dark fibre optic network of ESB Telecoms parallel to the existing HEAnet backbone between Dublin, Waterford and Cork.

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