Vigo will host the world’s
leading quantum cryptography conference in 2024.

Vigo will host the world’s leading quantum cryptography conference in 2024 when it is chosen to host the 14th International Conference on Quantum Cryptography, QCrypt, an event that after passing through cities such as Zurich, Cambridge, Shanghai, Amsterdam or Washington -in 2023- will arrive in Spain for the first time.

It will be from 2 to 6 September in the silk Afundación, organized by the University of Vigo and the Supercomputing Center of Galicia, Cesga, and will bring to the city between 300 and 400 researchers who work in the multiple aspects that include the development of this type of technologies that ensure, above all, the constant increase in the security and confidentiality of our communications.

“It is a unique opportunity to make even more visible the important research activities that are carried out in our University, in Galicia, and Spain in these technologies, and to make Vigo the capital of quantum communications during the week of the event”. Marcos Curty, scientific director of the Vigo Quantum Communication Center, attached to the research center AtlantTic, pending public presentation, in which companies and universities from a dozen countries collaborate and with which he has contributed definitively to placing Galicia on the world map of quantum communication.

Pioneers in this field

“Several of the researchers we currently have at the University in these technologies are pioneers in this field, we have great international visibility and we collaborate with the main international groups in this area,” said Curty, who clarifies that two of them — himself and Hugo Zbinden — have been members of the steering committee of this congress for several years.

“This baggage and the research of excellence that we conducted at our University in quantum communication were fundamental for Vigo to be chosen”, the researcher emphasized.

The annual conference on quantum cryptography, QCrypt, is an international meeting open to students and the research community working on all aspects of quantum cryptography, which includes theoretical and experimental research on the possibilities and limitations of secure communication and computing with devices that exploit the effects of quantum mechanics, or in the presence of devices that use these technologies.

Representation, mainly, of the United States, Europe and Asia.

“The objective of the conference is to present the best results of the previous year in quantum cryptography and to support the construction of a research community in this field”, stresses the Vigo teacher, who also refers to the fact that the program will include, among other issues, research on the quantum distribution of fully secure cryptographic keys.

Most of those attending these meetings usually come from universities, research centers, and R+D+i departments of companies in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.