The UK arm of Swiss quantum-security specialist ID Quantique, which supplies quantum key distribution and quantum random number technology to the UK's national quantum network.
ID Quantique, known as IDQ, is a quantum-safe security company that was founded in 2001 as a spin-off from the University of Geneva. Its products are used in more than 60 countries, according to a UK announcement. Two of its best-known lines are Clavis, the quantum key distribution equipment that shares secret encryption keys using light, and Quantis, a quantum random number generator, which has been made small enough to be built into phones and other devices. Its fourth-generation QKD system, the XG series, was unveiled in 2021.
IDQ describes itself as "the world leader in commercially available quantum-safe crypto solutions". It pairs QKD with conventional encryption to protect data against future quantum computers. The company is led by its chief executive and co-founder Grégoire Ribordy. This page is about its UK presence only; the company itself is Swiss, with headquarters in Geneva, so we make no claim about the size of the UK team.
IDQ announced a UK office in November 2016 to support the UK's National Quantum Technologies Programme and to provide research and development expertise to the Quantum Communications Hub. The announcement did not name a city, and we could not find a UK address. The UK link is nevertheless well documented. IDQ supplied the QKD systems for the Hub's metropolitan quantum network in Bristol, and for UKQNtel, the quantum-secure link between Cambridge and BT's Adastral Park near Ipswich. Its equipment also runs alongside Toshiba's on the Cambridge to Bristol leg of the UK Quantum Network. It works on UK research projects with the Universities of Leeds and York and the National Physical Laboratory, including testing quantum random number generators, and joined Airbus, Oxford and Bristol on the Q-DOS Light project.
The UK material says nothing about local culture, so we cannot describe it. The UK-based work appears to centre on research partnerships and customer projects, so the people involved are likely to be physicists, photonics and electronics engineers, network engineers and project staff who work with universities, telecoms companies and government.
If this area interests you, IDQ shows how a university science idea can grow into a global company. Quantum communications draws on physics, maths, computer science and telecoms engineering, so a degree or apprenticeship in any of them is a sensible route in. The company's website is the place to find the current UK contact and any openings.
Website: www.idquantique.com
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