PhoQuS to lead $18.6 Million Center for Quantum Networks Renewal

The National Science Foundation has awarded $18.6 million to renew the Center for Quantum Networks (CQN), an NSF Engineering Research Center now headquartered at the University of Maryland and led by PhoQuS group members Saikat Guha and Chaohan Cui.

The four-year renewal, running from September 2026 through August 2030, supports CQN’s mission of developing the technical and societal foundations of the emerging quantum internet — infrastructure that will link quantum computers, processors, sensors, and other quantum devices across local, metropolitan, and long-distance networks. The center’s research spans fault-tolerant quantum repeaters and network architectures compatible with today’s classical internet, drawing on an interdisciplinary team spanning computer science, electrical and optical engineering, atomic physics, materials science, economics, and social science.

Beyond the technical research, CQN is establishing Quantum Information Science and Engineering as a distinct academic discipline, building curricula and workforce-development programs, and operating as a public-private partnership linking universities, companies, national laboratories, and international collaborators. CQN was the first quantum-technology center in the history of NSF’s Engineering Research Centers program.

Read more at UMD Today and the UMD Clark School of Engineering.