The newspaper La Voz
de Galicia interviews Ana Blázquez.

In January 2025, the Newspaper “La Voz de Galicia” interviewed our PhD student, Ana Blázquez, in Vigo, Spain. In this interview, Ana Blázquez described the work she does at the Quantum Communication Technology Group within the VQCC.

We include the complete interview below:

Vigo creates a random number generator, key in cybersecurity

A cat enters a steel chamber in which there is poison. He doesn’t know. The door closes and stays locked in. Inside is a radioactive atom that, if it breaks down, will activate the system that will kill the animal. There is a 50% chance that he will live or die. The Austrian-Irish physicist Erwin Schrödinger proposes this experiment to conjecture the randomness of quantum physics, the scientific branch that is responsible for studying the behavior of matter at atomic and subatomic scales. The cat paradox said that you can only know if the animal is dead or not if you open the box. In other words, the cat’s fate will depend on when it is opened. “The idea is that, while the box is open, the cat is dead and alive at the same time because you can’t know its fate until the box is opened,” explains Ana Blázquez, a researcher at the Vigo Quantum Communication Center. One of the minds behind the new random number generator that they have created in the laboratory together with AtlanTTic and the University of Geneva (Switzerland).

This randomness, typical of quantum physics, since a particle can be in several states until it is measured, is key to cryptography and cybersecurity. Digital protection barriers are generated with keys created by an algorithm, but, “nowadays, they are not really random. This means that they are also more insecure,” explains Blázquez. Current computers can only generate “pseudo-random numbers.” They are based on patterns that, although complicated, can be deciphered with advanced computers. “That’s why it’s very important to create systems that generate completely random numbers. Thus, they would be completely indecipherable by a machine.”

The method created by the Vigo Quantum Communication Center “manages to generate really random numbers based on the unpredictable nature of quantum physics and, in addition, it is cheaper,” says Blázquez. For example, in Schrödinger’s case, “if the cat were alive it would generate a number 1 and if it died it would generate a 0”. In other words, the key would be indecipherable, since the cat’s situation would not be known until it is consulted.

“Quantum technology is usually much more expensive and our system is cheaper and more accessible,” explains Blázquez. Reducing costs is a “crucial aspect, for example, to make quantum cryptography technologies more accessible to businesses and individuals, which will help protect them from hackers,” she stresses. The researcher also recalls that technological innovation in the coming years means that security must improve at the same pace.

In addition, the generator created by the Vigo Quantum Communication Center, is also self-sufficient, so it can detect by itself if the numbers it is generating are really random. “A difficulty with cryptography systems is knowing whether they work with patterns or not, but the one we created in Vigo knows in real time whether they are working in a quantum way or not,” explains Blázquez.

For now, the system created on the campus of the University of Vigo has passed the experimental phase, and “we are creating the scientific article to share the results obtained,” says the researcher, who also recalls that banks, large companies and governments will have to use these systems soon.

“Quantum technology will be a strategic sector in the not too distant future”

The researcher at the Vigo Quantum Communication Center believes that it is “urgent to address the strategic interest of quantum technologies today so that they become a tool and not a threat”. She recalls that with a quantum computer it would be “easier to hack and overcome the cybersecurity systems we have today”. Applying this technology as a defence “will be the best tool to protect ourselves”, she stresses.

In fact, she stresses that companies and administrations already know that it will be a strategic sector in the “not too distant future”. Blázquez insists that “at the moment there is a growing interest in developing the new paradigm represented by quantum computers. The field of cryptographic security cannot ignore the potential of a technology capable of breaking the foundations of all current cybersecurity,” she stresses. In fact, the system created in Vigo works correctly “even in devices that are not perfect, as is the case with quantum computers that are beginning to be developed”.

The researcher also acknowledges that the technology they work with “is still very expensive”, but that, as technology advances, it will become more accessible. In addition, it is a sector that “is growing” and that opens doors to researchers who, like her, are beginning their journey. Blázquez is from 1996 and is in the third year of her doctorate. The work of the Vigo Quantum Communication Center, which will be published in the coming months, also involved Fadri Grünenfelder, Anthony Martin, Hugo Zbinden and Davide Rusca.