Tennessee Tech University said Monday, Oct. 26, that it received a $2.1 million federal award to establish a quantum communications testbed connecting Cookeville and Crossville.
The university said the project, funded through the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, will let researchers evaluate how quantum information can be distributed and measured across a regional network. The testbed, called Quantum Cookeville–Crossville, is designed to support testing beyond a single laboratory and under field conditions, according to the announcement.
Tennessee Tech said the network will include equipment to generate entangled photon pairs, detect individual photons, stabilize quantum signals, synchronize operations between locations and monitor performance. The university identified Muhammad Ismail, a computer science professor and director of its Cybersecurity Education, Research and Outreach Center, as the project’s principal investigator, and Anthony Skjellum, a computer science professor and director of its ASCEND center, as co-principal investigator.
The project combines expertise from those centers in quantum networking, cryptography, secure communications, high-performance computing and advanced networking, the university said. Tennessee Tech said it has offered quantum information science coursework through its computer science department since 2020 and that the testbed complements its GENESIS high-performance computing system.
