Quantum Corridor, Ciena, and Toshiba completed a live-network trial combining 1.6 Tb/s optical-layer encryption with post-quantum cryptography (PQC) and quantum key distribution (QKD). The work ran on Quantum Corridor’s commercial production network in the US Midwest, aimed at protecting in-flight data against “harvest now, decrypt later” risk as operators plan migrations to NIST-approved PQC standards.
The trial validated 1.6 Tb/s of encrypted connectivity between data centers in Chicago and Hammond, Indiana, using the WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) on Ciena’s Waveserver platform. Quantum Corridor also ran existing WaveLogic 5 Extreme (WL5e) 800G encrypted traffic on the same RLS photonic line system during the test.
On the key-management side, the setup interoperated with Toshiba QKD servers that generated quantum keys and delivered them to Ciena’s optical encryption systems. In practical terms, the trial demonstrated a hybrid approach where operators can use NIST-certified PQC algorithms while also integrating QKD for environments that want quantum-generated keys as part of their security model.
For data center operators, this matters less as an abstract crypto milestone and more as a transport engineering question: can you add quantum-safe controls without giving up line-rate performance or forcing a forklift upgrade of metro and DCI optical infrastructure. Validating 1.6 Tb/s encrypted connectivity on a production network, alongside existing 800G encrypted wavelengths, is a real-world datapoint that the control plane and optical layer can coexist without being relegated to a lab setup.
“By validating 1.6 Tb/s encrypted connectivity with both PQC and QKD on our live network, we’re demonstrating how we can help customers transition to a quantum secure solution while continuing to support the bandwidth demands of AI, cloud, and mission-critical applications,” said Ryan Lafler, President and CTO at Quantum Corridor.
Ciena’s Waveserver platform supports always-on, wire-speed, optical-layer AES-256-GCM encryption and NIST-certified PQC algorithms as part of its quantum-safe encryption. Ciena also said customers already deploying WL5e 800G encryption can add support for PQC algorithms via a software upgrade.
Source: Ciena
