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The coming Quantum Internet will bring us new capabilities: advanced
cryptographic functions, high-precision sensor networks for uses such
as high-resolution astronomy, and secure distributed quantum
computing. Experimental progress on the components for quantum
repeaters is moving at a dizzying rate, and theorists have proposed
various approaches to managing errors to create high-fidelity quantum
entanglement. Building quantum networks presents different challenges
from building quantum links. I will give an overview of these issues,
then discuss the even more daunting challenge of creating a network of
networks -- an internetwork -- and show how our simulations are
guiding the design of a true quantum Internet.
These challenges include routing (path selection), resource management
such as multiplexing techniques, and security considerations within
individual networks. Recently, we have discovered that it is possible
for a single hijacked quantum repeater to frame other repeaters as
malicious, substantially disrupting network operations. All of these
issues are magnified when discussing autonomous networks that exchange
information, known as an internetwork. In internetworking, not only
is the scale of the problem daunting, but heterogeneous technologies
will be deployed and demand interoperability at the logical level as
well as the physical. Network operators also prefer to maintain
the privacy of their own network operations, requiring mechanisms
including connection establishment to operate with minimal sharing of
information across network boundaries.
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