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In what appears to be the world's first quantum satellite transmission, China has successfully sent an "unbreakable" code over a long distance from an orbiting satellite to the Earth, achieving a milestone in the next generation encryption based on "quantum cryptography."

In August last year, China launched the world's first quantum communication satellite into the Earth’s orbit aboard a Long March-2D rocket to test the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics at space.

Dubbed Quantum Science Satellite, nicknamed Micius or Mozi (Chinese: 墨子), the satellite was designed to establish a 'Hack-Proof' communications system in this age of global surveillance by transmitting unbreakable encryption keys from space to the ground.

Now, it has been reported that using this satellite, the Chinese scientists at the Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) project were able to send secret "quantum key distribution" (QKD) data by beaming photons from the space to the ground stations over longer distances than ever before.

The Chinese scientists successfully sent quantum keys over a distance of 1,200 Km (745 miles) from space to Earth at a transmission rate up to 20 of magnitudes more efficient than that expected using an optical fibre of the same length, lead scientist Pan Jianwei told the official Xinhua news agency.

"That, for instance, can meet the demand of making an absolute safe phone call or transmitting a large amount of bank data," Jianwei said.

The Quantum Science Satellite could become the world's first transcontinental quantum key distribution network of its kind and China hopes to erect a global quantum cryptography-based communications network in 2030.

Theoretically, the use quantum cryptography for encryption is secure against any interception, as the information is encoded in a quantum particle in a way that it'll be destroyed as soon as the system detects any intrusion attempts.

"Satellite-based quantum key distribution can be linked to metropolitan quantum networks where fibres are sufficient and convenient to connect numerous users within a city over 100 km," Jianwei said. 

"We can thus envision a space-ground integrated quantum network, enabling quantum cryptography- most likely the first commercial application of quantum information- useful at a global scale."

China has largely been ambitious to realise the importance of Quantum technology that's believed to be a new era of faster and more powerful super computers.

From past two decades, Quantum technology has been a top strategic focus in China's 5-year economic development plan. While the U.S. invested about $200 Million a year in quantum research, China spent $101 Billion in quantum physics in 2015.

Quantum Computers – Boon or Bane?

Quantum computers can perform operations much more quickly and efficiently even with the use of less energy than conventional computers, but that's bad news for encryption — a process which scrambles data according to a massively complex mathematical code.

In theory, quantum computers can break almost all the existing encryption algorithms used on the Internet today due to their immense computing power.

Quantum computers are not just in theories; they're becoming a reality.

With countries like China that holds the top two position in the world's most powerful supercomputers (Sunway TaihuLight and Tianhe-2), followed by the United States' Titan, the day is not far when Quantum computers will work on an industrial scale.

Although it's hard to move quantum computing to an industrial scale, it has become a matter of concern for the United States' National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) over the fact that "if large-scale quantum computers are ever built, they will be able to break many of the public-key cryptosystems currently in use."

Although Quantum computers are not yet in action, we have seen evidence of the NSA's practical ability to crack some cryptography standards available today with its $11 billion-per-year budget dedicated to "groundbreaking cryptanalytic capabilities."

To tackle this situation, NIST has issued a Federal Register notice Tuesday, requesting private sector and academic cryptographers for help in writing new encryption standards that are sophisticated and powerful enough to withstand quantum computers' cracking attempts.

NIST announced that it would be accepting submissions from the candidates until 30th November 2017.

"With the public's participation," NIST's Cryptographic Technology Group says in a blog post, "NIST intends to spend the next few years gathering, testing and ultimately recommending new algorithms that would be less susceptible to a quantum computer's attack."

In the past deploying Quantum Computers on a large scale was just a theoretical possibility, but after some prototypes of quantum computing, many computer scientists now believes that the arrival of the quantum computing era is near.

But before today's very early prototypes grow into something more practical, NIST has to prepare its "information security systems to be able to resist quantum computing."

In a series of documents called the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS), NIST has also published the minimum standards for cryptographic technologies used by the United States government.

The list contains recommended NIST-approved algorithms for various encryption standards used to secure data, communications, and identity.

NIST-approved algorithms are widely used and are considered the gold standard for cryptography and would take hundreds of years to brute-force with currently available conventional computers.

But those algorithms are expected to be much more vulnerable to the advanced power of quantum computers, therefore calling NIST to develop quantum-proofed encryption algorithms.

The development of "new public-key cryptography standards will specify one or more additional unclassified, publicly disclosed digital signature, public-key encryption, and key establishment algorithms that are capable of protecting sensitive government information well into the foreseeable future, including after the advent of quantum computers," the agency says.

Submission of encryption algorithms will close on November 30 next year. After that period, NIST will review the proposals, and the selected candidate will be invited to present their quantum-proof public key cryptography algorithms at a workshop in early 2018.

China has taken one more step forward towards achieving success in Quantum communication technology.

China has launched the world's first quantum communications satellite into orbit aboard a Long March-2D rocket earlier today in order to test the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics at space.

'Hack-Proof' Communications System

The satellite, dubbed Quantum Science Satellite, is designed to develop a 'Hack-Proof' communications system in this age of global electronic surveillance and cyber attacks by transmitting uncrackable encryption keys from space to the ground.

The 600-plus-kilogram Quantum Science Satellite, better known as Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) satellite, took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gobi Desert at 1:40 AM local time on a 2-year mission on Tuesday.

The QUESS satellite will help China perform unprecedented levels of experiments in quantum communication by sending entangled photons from the satellite to relay stations in China and Europe, which is separated by about 1,200 kilometers (746 miles).

The pioneering experiment is to test if the spooky property of quantum entanglement can work at long distances as well.

The satellite's payloads include:

• Quantum key communicator
• Quantum entanglement emitter
• Quantum entanglement source
• Quantum experiment controller
• Processor
• Laser communicator

The payloads, designed to operate for two years, were developed by the National Space Science Center in Beijing under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The QUESS satellite will also test the possibilities of communication via quantum 'teleportation,' using an entangled pair of photons.

If the satellite is able to successfully transmit quantum information securely between two ground stations, it could have huge implications for encryption and cryptography.

China has largely been ambitious to realize the importance of Quantum technology. From past two decades, Quantum technology has been a top strategic focus in the country's 5-year economic development plan.

While the United States invested about $200 Million a year in quantum research, China spent $101 Billion in quantum physics in 2015, up from $1.9 Billion in 2005.

China Invests Billions of Dollars in Quantum Technology

Quantum communication encryption is secure against any kind of interception because information is encoded in a quantum particle in such a way that it will be destroyed as soon as the system detects any intrusion attempts.

For example, when two people share an encrypted quantum message and a third person intercepts it, the message will change in an unpredictable way.

Quantum researchers have recently experimented the use of photons to successfully communicate securely over short distances on earth.

But if successful, the QUESS satellite would vastly expand the range of unhackable communication to long distances as well.

"The newly-launched satellite marks a transition in China's role - from a follower in classic information technology development to one of the leaders guiding future achievements," Pan Jianwei, the scientist who is leading the project, told the official Xinhua news agency.

If successful, the QUESS satellite would be the world's first transcontinental quantum key distribution network of its kind and China hopes to erect a global quantum communications network in 2030.

"If China is going to send more quantum communication satellites into orbit, we can expect a global network of quantum communications to be set up around 2030," Pan added.