Newsletter    Strengthening India's Digital Resilience Through Quantum-Safe Communications

Strengthening India's Digital Resilience Through Quantum-Safe Communications

Strengthening India's Digital Resilience Through Quantum-Safe Communications

Quantum technologies are the next frontier of innovation, with the potential to transform computing, communications, cybersecurity, and industrial optimization. The global quantum ecosystem is rapidly shi ing from scientific discovery and experimentation toward quantum readiness, commercialization, industrial deployment, and the creation of trusted digital infrastructure capable of supporting future economic growth and technological competitiveness.

Governments around the world are accelerating investments in quantum technologies for their transformative economic potential and strategic importance in areas such as secure communications, critical infrastructure protection, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, finance, and national security.

India and Japan: Collaborating To Accelerate Quantum Innovation & Deployment.

As quantum technologies gain strategic importance globally, India and Japan demonstrate how national vision, sustained investment and industry collaboration are shaping the next phase of quantum innovation in Asia. India's National Quantum Mission (NQM), approved with an outlay of over INR 6,003 crore through 2030-31, aims to transform the country's technology development ecosystem, making it globally competitive. It will drive advancements across key sectors such as communication, healthcare, finance, and energy, with applications in drug discovery, space exploration, banking, and security. Moreover, the mission will play a crucial role in advancing national initiatives like Digital India, Make in India, Skill India, Stand-up India, Start-up India, Self-Reliant India, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Japan's vision is equally ambitious and shares many of these objectives. Quantum technologies have been positioned as a key enabler of Society 5.0, Japan's vision of a human-centric society that leverages advanced technologies to create economic value while solving societal challenges. Japan has further designated 2025 as the First Year of Quantum Industrialization, emphasizing commercialization, talent development, international collaboration, ecosystem building, and the social implementation of quantum technologies to accelerate their real-world impact. Alongside industrial development, Japan is expanding quantum education programs, industry-linked training initiatives, interdisciplinary talent pipelines, and international collaboration frameworks to strengthen long-term competitiveness. Japan has also established the Quantum STrategic industry Alliance for Revolution (Q-STAR), a Japanese industry association promoting the creation of business opportunities for quantum technology. Taro Shimada, Representative Director, Corporate Officer, President and Chief Executive Officer of Toshiba Corporation, currently serves as Chair of the Board of Q-STAR.

In May 2026 a Letter of Intent (LoI) on cooperation in Quantum Science and Technology was signed between India's Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Japan's Cabinet Office. Japan’s strengths in advanced manufacturing and frontier technologies, including quantum and AI, align closely with India’s expanding technology ecosystem. The agreements exchanged during the meeting, particularly in quantum technologies, will promote deeper collaboration spanning research, application and industrial deployment.

The collaboration aims at strengthening cooperation under India’s NQM, which is advancing an integrated approach across quantum computing, communication, sensing and materials, along with progress in long-distance quantum secure communication networks. With its network of quantum innovation hubs, Japan can enhance collaboration with research hubs in India to accelerate innovation and technology deployment.

This growing collaboration creates a meaningful opportunity for industry to contribute to areas where quantum research can move towards real-world application. In quantum communications, Toshiba can contribute through its long-standing work in Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and Quantum-safe Networking, supporting secure communications capabilities aligned with India’s National Quantum Mission.

Toshiba: Securing Sensitive Data Today Through QKD

As quantum technologies move closer to practical deployment, securing digital communications is becoming one of the most immediate areas of application. For India, where digital infrastructure is expanding across government, telecom, financial services, healthcare and critical industries, protecting sensitive and long-life data is increasingly important. The risk is already present: data captured today may be exposed later as computing capabilities advance.

QKD is one of the core technologies that can enable quantum-safe communications by securely distributing encryption keys using the principles of quantum mechanics. Toshiba has been at the forefront of quantum cryptography since 1999, building a strong record of innovation and world-first achievements in QKD. Toshiba’s Quantum Safe Networking Platform provides a practical foundation for quantum-safe networks by integrating QKD, Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC), classical cryptography, key management system (Q-KMS), and network monitoring/orchestration. This helps protect high-value data flows, integrate with existing network infrastructure, and migrate progressively towards quantum-resilient security

Over the years, Toshiba has demonstrated QKD and related quantum safe networking technologies in di erent parts of the world.

• France: In France, Orange Business and Toshiba partnered to launch first commercial quantum-safe network service, the country’s first commercial quantum-safe networking service in Paris. The service uses Toshiba’s Quantum Safe Networking technology, combining QKD and PQC to help enterprises protect sensitive data, with a French financial services company already connected across multiple sites.
• Japan: In Japan, companies including Toshiba have worked closely with the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) to advance quantum-secure communications from research testbeds towards wider practical deployment. Building on NICT’s Tokyo QKD Network, which has operated since 2010, NTT DOCOMO BUSINESS, Toshiba, and NEC recently began constructing an approximately 600 km wide-area QKD network* connecting Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, supporting future use cases involving highly confidential data in areas such as healthcare, finance and power.
• The UK: In the UK, HSBC became the first bank to join BT and Toshiba’s commercial quantum-secure metro network, in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS). The trial connected HSBC’s global headquarters in Canary Wharf with a data centre in Berkshire, demonstrating how QKD can help protect sensitive financial data and support cloud-edge security use cases.
• Singapore: In Singapore, Toshiba established a strategic partnership with SpeQtral to support the country’s National Quantum-Safe Network Plus (NQSN+) initiative and advance quantum-safe communications across Singapore’s digital ecosystem.

Supporting a Trusted Quantum Future

Across these global initiatives, Toshiba’s experience reflects how quantum-safe communications can evolve from national research and technology validation, to ecosystem development and international collaboration, and ultimately towards commercial network services and sector-specific use cases. For India, these reference points are relevant as the country advances its National Quantum Mission and builds the foundations for quantum-safe communications across government, telecom, critical infrastructure and enterprise environments.

As emerging technologies reshape the future, Toshiba remains guided by its longstanding philosophy of "Committed to People, Committed to the Future.", to creating value for society through innovation. Toshiba will continue advancing quantum innovations while exploring opportunities to collaborate with India in next-generation technologies.